The targeted killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif and four other colleagues by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) late on Sunday silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza.

The IDF wasted no time in releasing a statement claiming it had “eliminated” Al-Sharif, calling him a “terrorist” who “posed” as a journalist for Al Jazeera.

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The Committee to Protect Journalists warned in July that Al-Sharif was the victim of an Israeli smear campaign and that they feared for his safety.

The IDF had previously released documents which they say proved his involvement with Hamas.

No word from them on his colleagues – Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa – who they also killed. We are chasing.

Al-Sharif’s death – and that of his four colleagues – is a chilling message to the journalistic community both on the ground and elsewhere ahead of Israel’s impending push into Gaza City.

There will now be fewer journalists left to cover that story, and – if it is even possible – they will be that bit more fearful.

This is how journalists are silenced. Israel knows this full well.

It has also not allowed international journalists independent access to enter Gaza to report on the war.

Al-Sharif’s death has sent shockwaves across the region, where he was a household name. He was prolific on social media and had a huge following.

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I was watching horrifying footage of the immediate aftermath of the strike in the taxi on my way into the bureau, and the driver told me how he and his family had all cried for Anas when the news came in.

His little daughter cried because of Al-Sharif’s little daughter, Sham, who she knew from social media.

“They call everyone Hamas,” my taxi driver said. “Men, women, children”.

Last month, Al-Sharif wrote this post: “I haven’t stopped covering [the crisis] for a moment in 21 months, and today I say it outright… and with indescribable pain.

“I am drowning in hunger, trembling in exhaustion and resisting the fainting that follows me every moment… Gaza is dying. And we die with it.”

This is what journalists in Gaza are facing, every single day.

Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.

He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.

This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.

Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.

If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?

Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.

He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.

“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.

I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.

Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.

The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.

“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”

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This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.

It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.

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He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.

This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.

Five Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza – including a reporter who feared he was going to be assassinated.

Anas al Sharif died alongside four of his colleagues from the network: Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had recently expressed “grave” concerns about al Sharif’s safety, and claimed he was “being targeted by an Israeli military smear campaign”.

Israel Defence Forces confirmed the strike – and alleged al Sharif was a “terrorist” who “served as the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organisation”.

It claimed he was “responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops”.

Last month, the reporter had said he lived with “the feeling that I could be bombed and martyred at any moment” because his coverage of Israel’s operations “harms them and damages their image in the world”.

As of 5 August, at least 186 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza – but foreign reporters have been barred from covering the war independently since the latest conflict began in 2023.

The Hamas-run government has described Israel’s killing of these five Al Jazeera journalists as “brutal and heinous”.

A statement added: “The assassination was premeditated and deliberate, following a deliberate, direct targeting of the journalists’ tent near al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

“The targeting of journalists and media institutions by Israeli aircraft is a full-fledged war crime aimed at silencing the truth and obliterating the traces of genocidal crimes.”

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Following Anas al Sharif’s death, a post described as his “last will and testament” was posted on X.

It read: “If these words of mine reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.”

The 28-year-old added that he laments being able to fulfil his dream of seeing his son and daughter grow up – and alleged he had witnessed children “crushed by thousands of tonnes of Israeli bombs and missiles”.

“Do not forget Gaza … and do not forget me in your prayers for forgiveness and acceptance,” he wrote.

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The CPJ reported that his father was killed by an Israeli airstrike on their family home in December 2023 after the journalist received telephone threats from Israeli army officers instructing him to cease coverage.

Israel shut down the Al Jazeera television network in the country in May last year.