Thread by @reider

A couple of words about Israel's assassination of the top broadcast journalist in Gaza, Anas al-Sharif.
1. Israel has now stopped pretending journos are "collateral damage," or hastily smearing them after a kill. This murder is claimed loudly and proudly by IDF spox.

2. In fact, IDF Arabic spox @AvichayAdraee has been attacking al-Sharif for months, and posting more smears now.
(NB, fellow journos - when you next call IDF spox for comment, remember they built the case for killing several of your colleagues, and would do the same for you.)

3. As to the "evidence" about Sharif's alleged links with Hamas:
3a. The real aim of the kill is to crack down on coverage ahead of next escalation. This 'evidence' mostly for domestic consumption; abroad, IDF credibility is close to nil. But even assuming they're true—

3b. Selfies with Hamas leaders don't mean a thing, esp when you remember how young al-Sharif was when these were taken, and that those leaders were official rulers of Gaza, recognised, negotiated with and supplied by Israel itself.
3c. Evidence of active involvement -

...most Israeli journos cut their teeth in the IDF, whether on the quasi-independent Army Radio - the closest thing Israel has to a journalism school - or in actual combat units, where many continue to serve on reserve duty while working full time in the media. Killing...

an Israeli journo, as a journo, because they once served and/or currently serve with IDF reserve would be a war crime; it would even be a war crime to kill them if they were embedded, as journos, with an active IDF unit, unless they were literally armed and firing. The same

very much applies to Palestinian journalists.
3d. But it also applies to non combatants generally: unless they pose an active threat, killing someone merely affiliated w a terrorist group is little more than summary execution. It has been horrifically normalised in 21st century

starting with Israel but also by the US (thanks, Obama.) But that doesn't make it ok. It's no different than balaclavad thugs barging into a home, dragging someone from bed and executing them in front of their families, except here Israel tends to execute the families too.

No independent oversight, no judge, no jury, no scrutiny, no due process; "targeted" assassination is another huge crack in any semblance of international order, and it'll only get wider.
3e. As to those who say al-Sharif's credibility is tarnished by these alleged links...

firstly, this is a reason to doubt him, not to kill him. secondly, kindly do apply same to Israeli journos, most of whom subsist on a kool-aid only diet since Oct7, and, again, many of whom openly maintain links to one warring party as al-Sharif allegedly did to another. And..

most importantly, if you dislike/disbelieve what Palestinian journos show you, demand Israel lets foreign media in. And if you're a journo, try and get in yourself. Otherwise, pissing on the graves of colleagues who took far more risks than you makes you look like a little shit.

PS @yuval_abraham has a good post here about the work of a new task force within IDF military intelligence, dedicated to finding "legitimisation" for IDF excesses, fuckups and atrocities - including any info that could link Palestinian journos to Hamas.

https://x.com/reider/status/1954782210143273103