An Al Jazeera journalist warned Israel was targeting him. Now he’s dead.

The Israeli military killed more journalists on Sunday, including a prominent one from Al Jazeera. Anas al-Sharif, a journalist for Al Jazeera, was killed in a strike on Gaza City on Sunday.

And it appears to be no accident.

The director of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City claimed it was a targeted attack on a tent for journalists outside the main gate of the hospital. And in a statement, the Israeli military said, “Anas Al Sharif served as the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organization and was responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops.”

The Israeli military has claimed it possesses documents providing “unequivocal proof” of his involvement with Hamas.

But those claims have been vehemently denied and condemned, and there have been concerns for some time that Israel would target the reporter.

Just a month ago, the Committee to Protect Journalists put out a statement that said al-Sharif, 28, was “being targeted by an Israeli military smear campaign.”

CPJ regional director Sara Qudah said on July 24, “We are deeply alarmed by the repeated threats made by Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee against Al Jazeera’s Gaza correspondent Anas al-Sharif and call on the international community to protect him. This is not the first time Al-Sharif has been targeted by the Israeli military, but the danger to his life is now acute. Israel has killed at least six Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza during this war. These latest unfounded accusations represent an effort to manufacture consent to kill Al-Sharif.”

At the time, al-Sharif told CPJ, “Adraee’s campaign is not only a media threat or an image destruction; it is a real-life threat. All of this is happening because my coverage of the crimes of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip harms them and damages their image in the world. They accuse me of being a terrorist because the occupation wants to assassinate me morally.”

Just two weeks ago, Al Jazeera condemned the Israeli military for what it called a “campaign of incitement” against its reporters in the Gaza Strip, including most notably al-Sharif. In a statement on July 25, Al Jazeera said it “strongly condemns and denounces these relentless efforts, which have consistently incited against its staff since the beginning of its coverage of the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza.”

It added, “The Network considers this incitement a dangerous attempt to justify the targeting of its journalists in the field.”

Al Jazeera reported on Sunday that other journalists were killed in Sunday’s attack, writing, “Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal were also among the victims.” It has been reported that another journalist and two others also died, and that eight other persons were wounded.

Al Jazeera wrote on Sunday, “Israel has routinely accused Palestinian journalists in Gaza of being members of Hamas since it launched its war on the enclave in October 2023 as part of what rights groups say is an effort to discredit their reporting on Israeli abuses. The Israeli military has killed more than 200 reporters and media workers since its bombardment began, including several Al Jazeera journalists and their relatives.”

The New York Times’ Ephrat Livni reported Sunday, “Foreign journalists have not been allowed to enter Gaza to report independently from the enclave, so most of the reporting emerging from the war has come from Palestinian reporters. In recent weeks, as a hunger crisis has gripped Gaza, and reporters on the ground have talked about losing the strength to work, news organizations have called on Israel to let in more aid and reporters. Mr. al-Sharif described himself as ‘drowning in hunger’ late last month.”

Al Jazeera called al-Sharif “one of Gaza's bravest journalists” and said the attack “is a desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of Gaza.”

At the start of a lengthy haunting final post on X, al-Sharif wrote, “This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.”

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Colbert on vacation

CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert is on vacation. He sure can use one.

It has been an eventful summer for Colbert. Last month, CBS announced that his show would be canceled next May. That announcement came just days after he blasted CBS’s parent company, Paramount, for settling a lawsuit with President Donald Trump. Colbert called it a “big fat bribe” because Paramount was seeking the Trump administration's approval for Paramount to be sold to Skydance — a deal that has since been finalized.

CBS claims that Colbert’s politics, which frequently criticize Trump and the right, have nothing to do with the show’s cancellation. They claim that traditional late-night TV just isn’t economically feasible. Just last week, George Cheeks, the chair of TV Media at CBS, repeated those claims. At a press conference announcing the Skydance deal, Cheeks said, “The challenge in late night is that the advertising marketplace is in significant secular decline. We are huge fans of Colbert, we love the show, unfortunately the economics made it a challenge for us to keep going.”

There are estimates that “The Late Show” was losing as much as $40 million a year. Cheeks wouldn’t say exactly how much the show was losing, but did say it was “significant” and in the “tens of millions.”

He added, “At the end of the day, it just wasn’t sustainable to continue.”

Still, the timing of the announcement to cancel Colbert’s show was, at the very least, curious. Why the rush to announce now that a show is being canceled in nine months? Why didn’t Paramount just let Skydance make that call after the sale?

But because it went down the way it did, one can’t help but ask if it was meant to send a message to Trump that CBS and Paramount would do whatever was needed to smooth the way for the sale to Skydance to be approved.

As I said, the timing was curious. And you might say the same for Colbert’s now three-week vacation. Colbert’s final show of the summer was last Thursday — the day the Skydance deal became official.

But LateNighter’s Jed Rosenzweig reports this is the time when late-night shows typically go on vacation. Rosenzweig notes that Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” is currently on a five-week break, NBC’s two late-night shows (“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers”) will begin a two-week vacation next week, and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel is on vacation with guest hosts filling in for him.

Interesting project

I like to use this newsletter to point out particularly good work, which brings me to an impressive new project from the Los Angeles Times.

It’s called “The Future of LA.”

In a note, an LA Times spokesperson said the multipart series is “an extensive package of stories and essays examining key issues facing Los Angeles and what solving them — or failing to solve them — would look like in the future. Essentially the package aims to ask: What can we — and should we — do to make our city a sustainable and equitable home for everyone? The project — which covers environmental, housing and cultural topics — features personal essays, news analysis, speculative fiction and more.”

It’s a pretty cool package even if you’re not a Southern California resident.

Media tidbits

• Mediaite’s Alex Griffing with “JD Vance’s Latest Epstein Claims Lead to New Calls For Trump to Release All the Files.”
• And another from Griffing: “Pam Bondi Was a Fox News Regular. Then the Epstein Scandal Happened.”
• The New York Times’ Kashmir Hill and Dylan Freedman with “Chatbots Can Go Into a Delusional Spiral. Here’s How It Happens.”
• The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell with “New chatbot on Trump’s Truth Social platform keeps contradicting him.”
• The Wall Street Journal’s Lauren Thomas and Jessica Toonkel with an exclusive that television-broadcaster Nexstar Media Group is in advanced talks to acquire rival Tegna: “Two Big TV Broadcasters in Advanced Deal Talks.”
• The Los Angeles Times’ Alexandra Del Rosario with “Sydney Sweeney now has the Proud Boys in her corner, says defaced billboard in Corona.”
• Speaking of that Sweeny ad, The New York Times’ Ken Bensinger and Stuart A. Thompson with “How the Right Shaped the Debate Over the Sydney Sweeney Ads.”
• Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson with “Potential Buyers Emerge For Closed Wyoming Newspapers.”

Hot type

• Dan Wetzel, longtime columnist at Yahoo, is now a senior writer at ESPN and has this well-done, yet sobering piece: “The predatory web of sextortion increasingly ensnares young athletes.”
• The New York Times’ Matt Flegenheimer with “Dr. Phil’s Road From Oprah to ICE Raids.”
• “CBS News Sunday Morning” and correspondent John Blackstone with “Steve Wozniak on fighting internet scams.”

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• Early-career editors: Line-edit under pressure, coach inexperienced reporters remotely and guide reporters to develop stories that elevate their beat coverage. Register now.
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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].

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