Outrageous reporting this week enabled terrorism to hide behind the mask of journalism, portraying an Al Jazeera reporter targeted by Israel in Gaza as a heroic figure.

In reality, it was a sea of lies that ignored clear evidence that Anas al-Sharif was, in fact, a member of Hamas.

Almost all foreign media outlets mourned the death of al-Sharif in an IDF strike on Monday, August 12, while doubting or altogether omitting hard evidence presented by the IDF proving that he was a commander of a terrorist cell in a Hamas guided rockets platoon.

Western press have eaten up Al Jazeera *cough* Hamas propaganda over Anas al-Sharif’s elimination by the IDF.

Here’s a  of some of the most egregious coverage. https://t.co/zrgp91N4EP

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 12, 2025

The IDF presented an internal Hamas document where al-Sharif was registered as a soldier and team commander, as well as a photo showing him embraced by former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7, 2023, attack against Israel.

كما قلنا منذ البداية ورفض البعض تصديقه: لا يجلس مجالس الارهابيين إلا الإرهابي. #أنس_الشريف لم يكن صحفيًا بل إرهابيًا حمساويًا pic.twitter.com/KG6DPrlyoW

— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) August 11, 2025

The media did not even bother displaying these. Instead, al-Sharif’s photo in a press vest circulated everywhere, and Israel’s claims were either ignored or undermined.

Sky News, for example, lauded al-Sharif as a “crucial reporting voice,” but IDF evidence of his Hamas affiliation was disregarded.

On social media network X, Sky News also posted a story quoting Al Jazeera’s condemnation of Al Sharif’s “assassination.” The network did not respond when Israeli former hostage Shlomi Ziv commented: “I was held by a journalist in captivity and his father was a Doctor!!!!!!!”

Meanwhile, the AP and Reuters — the world’s two leading news agencies — failed to properly report what the IDF was stating.

The AP simply lied, saying that Israel said “without producing evidence that al-Sharif had led a Hamas cell. It was a claim the news organization and al-Sharif had denied” — as if a denial is a clear-cut refutation of hard evidence.

Reuters did the same, saying Israel did not disclose any evidence.

And instead of headlines such as “IDF kills Hamas terror cell leader posing as ‘Al Jazeera’ journalist,” both agencies’ headlines were one-sided.

They took the Palestinian narrative that Israel targets journalists as gospel, even though this narrative is based on the Qatari-funded network that supports Hamas and the denial that its worker has been exposed as a terrorist:

 

The New York Times went as far as eulogizing al-Sharif and the four other journalists who were killed in the strike, displaying Israel’s proven claims as mere accusations.

Nowhere did the Times display al-Sharif’s photo with Sinwar or the documents showing his Hamas affiliation.

This evidence was also omitted from a Washington Post headline and sub-header that made Israel look like it deliberately targets journalists:

Meanwhile, CNN produced hard-hitting videos showing al-Sharif’s Al Jazeera’s dispatches from war-torn Gaza, but without showing any of Israel’s evidence.

Ultimately, this is symptomatic of a wider problem throughout this war — whereby the media treat IDF statements with disdain while treating the claims of a terrorist organization as fact.

All these outlets, of course, failed to mention that al-Sharif conveniently ignored Gazans’ protests against Hamas throughout the war. Courage, apparently, applies only to reporting what Hamas wants the world to hear.

And almost none of them mentioned that al-Sharif was not the first terrorist who posed as a journalist in Gaza, perhaps in an attempt to hide the fact that it is a common phenomenon — from CNN’s Hassan Eslaiah to Al Jazeera’s Ismail Al Ghoul, among others.

Will the media ever doubt the Qatari network’s statements as it doubts the IDF?

Will they ever question what any journalist in Gaza says?

They can’t. Because they project their own conceptions on what it is like to cover a warzone, especially Gaza. They think that any journalist there deserves automatic solidarity and protection, instead of professional scrutiny.

With a pre-existing pro-Palestinian bias –  it means the entire global media sings to Hamas’ tune.

Indeed, it proves Hamas’ evil brilliance of using the term “journalist” as a cover for terrorism. If anyone doubts it, it is an assault on the freedom of the press. Thus, the global media outcry over al-Sharif and his colleagues is a betrayal of real journalism, manipulated to demonize Israel and enable attacks against it. The outcry should have been directed against the exploitation of respected titles to promote terrorist agendas or fire rockets at innocent civilians.

Al Jazeera has already succeeded in promoting its own Hamas-friendly narrative in the aftermath of al-Sharif and his colleagues’ deaths — one where Israel is attempting to “silence voices” from revealing the truth of what is going on inside Gaza. As the IDF gears up for a potential invasion of Gaza City, we can expect to hear more of this narrative, as Al Jazeera and its fellow travelers in Western media falsely claim that Israel is attempting to cover up alleged crimes by deliberately targeting media workers.

The truth is quite the opposite. But it is unlikely to be reported.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.