Global protests condemn Gaza war crimes and killings

In Israel Hamas Gaza News by Newsroom13-08-2025

Global protests condemn Gaza war crimes and killings

Summary

  • An Israeli airstrike killed five Al Jazeera journalists.
  • The attack targeted a media tent near al-Shifa Hospital.
  • Victims include reporters and cameramen from Al Jazeera.
  • Global condemnation calls it assault on press freedom.
  • Protests demand justice for the journalists' deaths.

On Wednesday, journalists, students, activists, and civil society members staged protests in several cities, including Cape Town, South Africa; Manila, Philippines; and London, United Kingdom, to urge their governments to pressure Israel to permit international media to enter Gaza and end Gaza war crimes and genocidal conflict in the region.

 

Cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, as well as Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, were murdered in an Israeli hit on their media tent outside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City late Sunday.

 

Since Israel's war on Gaza started after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, al-Sharif has been one of Gaza's most recognizable figures because of his consistent reporting of the situation on the ground.

 

At least 61,722 people have died and 154,525 have been injured in Israel's conflict in Gaza. During the October 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel, an estimated 1,139 individuals were killed and almost 200 were captured.

 

Members of civil society and journalists gathered at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town on Wednesday to express their anger at al-Sharif’s murder, sporting placards with one reading “your voice was louder than their bombs”.

 

The location is significant, said Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller, reporting from Cape Town, as

“it’s been an important signal against oppression here in South Africa, especially during the decades of apartheid”.


The people gathered here

“have condemned what Israel has done”,


Miller said.

“They want the entry of international journalists into Gaza in addition to the work being done by Palestinian journalists,”


she said.

“People here are angry.”

 

Journalist Zubeida Jaffer told Miller,

“I was one of the journalists who were targeted, you know those media that documented apartheid, so this really resonates with me.”

 

Miller said,

“The South African government has previously condemned the killing of journalists in Gaza, specifically in 2022 when Shireen Abu Akleh was killed. The South African government had said it was a violation of international law.”

 

Before being slain by Israeli soldiers during a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian-American journalist Abu Akleh spent 25 years working for Al Jazeera.

 

South Africa filed a complaint before the International Court of Justice in December 2023, alleging that Israel had committed Gaza war crimes that included genocide.

 

According to Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull, reporting from London, reporters from the UK sections of the National Union of Journalists paid their condolences to the deceased Al Jazeera employees outside the prime minister's home at Number 10 Downing Street on Wednesday.

 

According to Hull, the reporters read out the names of all the journalists who had been killed since Israel's attack on Gaza started while holding placards with their names on them. They then "symbolically, recited Islamic funeral prayers" for the deceased on Sunday.

 

Those in attendance on Wednesday "want outright condemnation and nothing less," Hull added, while British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday "talked about his grave concern" regarding the murders of the Al Jazeera journalists.

 

Additionally, according to Lo, these demonstrators came to call on "the international community to ramp up pressure on Israel to stop its genocide, including for the Philippine government to cut its trade and defense ties with Israel."

 

The third-largest importer of Israeli weapons is the Philippines.

 

The Philippines supported a resolution passed by the UN General Assembly in June calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Along with calling for Israel to remove its blockade of humanitarian supplies in Gaza, this resolution denounced Israel's use of famine as a weapon of war.

 

How has international opinion responded to the killing of these journalists?


U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for an independent and impartial investigation into the targeted strike on the journalists. U.N. experts and officials have described the killings as deliberate and a serious violation of international norms protecting journalists. 

 

Irene Khan, U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, called the killings "really murder," emphasizing that this was a deliberate strategy to silence independent voices reporting from Gaza. She stressed the need for protection of journalists and international access to Gaza to ensure truth and accountability.

 

Organizations such as Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned Israel's actions as targeted killings and murder.

 

Global protests condemn Gaza war crimes and killings