Why are Al Jazeera Jihadists Being Sanctified as Heroic Journalists

Terrorists are dressing up as journalists and being celebrated as heroes. That should terrify us. When people in the West can no longer tell the difference between a terrorist and a reporter, we are in dangerous territory. And when global media outlets themselves are the ones amplifying these terrorists as ‘truth-tellers’, the spiral we are entering threatens the very core of our society.

On 10 August 2025, Israel eliminated Hamas commander Anas Al-Sharif. According to the IDF, he was a paid terrorist operative, and the evidence presented included personnel rosters, training lists, phone directories, and salary documents. The IDF claimed Al-Sharif headed a Hamas terrorist cell involved in firing rockets at Israeli civilians. Yet Al-Sharif also wore the badge of ‘journalist’ at Al Jazeera, using his press jacket as a shield and his platform as a weapon to broadcast Hamas propaganda to the world.

After the strike, images surfaced showing Anas Al-Sharif happily socialising with Hamas leaders:

Instead of anger at this charade – the exploitation of journalism to cloak terror – we saw anger at Israel. Worse still, we saw the canonisation of men like Al-Sharif, lauded as martyrs of the press.

Of the six ‘journalists’ killed with Al-Sharif, every accessible profile (4/4) openly glorified the murder of Jews in religious terms.

This is the real issue: not who was killed, but how jihadists are being sanctified as journalists. In the same strike that targeted Al-Sharif, five other journalists were also killed. I searched for their social media profiles. What I found was not the voice of reporters, but the creed of jihadists – men who viewed the slaughter of Jews as a religious cause to glorify, not a crime to condemn.

I am about to present solid evidence that these men not only wanted to see Jews killed, but also saw the murder through religious eyes – as part of a holy war. If they were glorifying the murder of innocents using the Christian Bible as justification – no legacy media outlet in the world would describe them other than as dangerous religious fundamentalists. So why is it when a Muslim uses the Quran to justify and celebrate the death of innocent Jews, outlets such as The Guardian publish comment pieces gushing about how these jihadists are actually brave heroes?

1. Al Jazeera Terrorist Anas Al-Sharif

Anas Al-Sharif was a senior member of the Al Jazeera team in Gaza. In the image below are two posts captured from Al-Sharif’s Telegram channel. The first is a celebration of the slaughter on 7 October 2023. It was posted in mid-afternoon, by which time we had all seen the Hamas footage as they proudly livestreamed the atrocities. Al-Sharif praised the terrorists as heroes – openly referencing both the murder and the capture of hostages. He ends by praising God.

The second is a post from 27 January 2023 – shortly after a terrorist attack in Jerusalem that saw seven Israelis brutally murdered outside a synagogue. The post shows a bullet casing, with the cap shaped as the Dome of the Rock. Words from the Quran 17:5: ‘We sent against them our servants of great might and strength’ and ‘They ran over all of your land’ appear in the post. This is not just a cartoon celebrating ‘resistance’; it is jihadist propaganda, religiously justifying a brutal murder. The Quranic verse is historically used to describe God sending warriors to punish enemies and here it is applied to frame the murder of Jews as a sacred duty. 

2. Al Jazeera Terrorist-Supporter Mohammed Qreiqeh

Mohammed Qreiqeh was an Al Jazeera correspondent. In the image below, we can see Mohammed Qreiqeh posted an open celebration of 7 October, describing the images of slaughter as ‘heartwarming scenes’, and referring to the terrorists of Hamas as ‘heroes’. Following the brutal terrorist attack in which seven Israelis were murdered outside a synagogue on 27 January 2023, he posted joyous messages praising the murders as good for the Palestinian people. A third example is a celebratory post from 20 June 2023 after Hamas terrorists murdered four Israelis outside a petrol station. One of the Hamas terrorists, Muhannad Shahada, is explicitly mentioned in the post and referred to as a ‘hero’.

3. Freelance Terrorist-Supporter Mohammad al-Khaldi

Mohammad al-Khaldi was one of the two non-Al Jazeera employees killed. He was listed as a freelancer. In the image below we can see four celebratory posts. Like most Palestinian jihadists online, al-Khaldi posted public glorification of the attack on 27 January 2023 – celebrating the ‘youth’ that carried it out. This was far from his only celebration over the death of Jews:

On 29 March 2022, after five Israelis were murdered in a terror attack in Bnei Brak, al-Khaldi referred to the five ‘dogs’ or ‘lepers’ who were swallowed up.

He celebrated the terror attack on 22 March 2022 during which four Israelis were stabbed to death. In his post, he referred to the ‘Lion of Be’er Sheva’. He calls it a ‘super hat-trick’ because four people were murdered.

On 7 April 2022, three Israelis were murdered in a terrorist attack in a Tel Aviv bar. In Arab culture, distributing sweets marks a celebration. Here, al-Khaldi posted that they need to be careful or ‘we’ll get diabetes’, which was a grotesque way of celebrating successive deadly terror attacks.

4. Al Jazeera Terrorist-Supporter Ibrahim Zaher

Ibrahim Zaher was an Al Jazeera cameraman. On social media Zaher is known informally as Abu Karim. On 27 January 2023 following the terrorist attack outside a Jerusalem synagogue Zaher posted a religious message in celebration. The untranslated hashtag reads ‘Jerusalem.’ The text is a direct quotation from the Quran, Surah At-Tawbah (9:14). Zaher is framing the attack as a form of divine retribution or satisfaction for Muslims. In several other posts, Zaher celebrated the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel in 2021, invoking Quranic text that explicitly refers to the Israelis as ‘devils’ being struck down by divinely guided missiles.

Four out of Four

Six people were killed in the strike near al-Shifa Hospital. I could not find a social-media footprint for Mohammed Noufal, and the Facebook account for Moamen Aliwa is set to private. Of the four accessible profiles found, all four celebrated the murder of innocent Jews in explicitly religious-jihadist terms. This pattern is consistent with earlier research showing that many self-styled ‘journalists’ in Gaza promote jihadist ideology.

Rotten from the Top

Al Jazeera terror ties are not new. The al-Dahdouh clan is Islamic Jihad royalty. The group held annual ceremonies honouring the dozens of ‘martrys’ the clan has given to the cause. Wael al-Dahdouh (who spent time in jail himself for violent activity during the intifada) – is Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief. His uncles, cousins, brother, nephews, and his own son (according to the IDF) were all targeted as Islamic Jihad operatives. No small fry either – his uncle Khaled al-Dahdouh was Islamic Jihad’s top military commander when he was killed.

This is taken from a message in which Wael al-Dahdouh publicly thanked Islamic Jihad for its support, following the loss of a nephew who belonged to the terrorist group:

Al Jazeera must have been aware of the Islamic Jihad ties when they first employed him.

The Unifying Cause

What unites Al-Sharif, Qreiqeh, al-Khaldi, and Zaher is not journalism but jihad. Each glorified the killing of Jews as divine or heroic. These are not slips or lapses but a worldview in which murder is celebrated, not condemned.

The greater tragedy is that global media institutions, instead of exposing this, too often elevate it. By describing such men as ‘brave reporters’ or ‘truth-tellers,’ the media launders terrorist propaganda as journalism. And when the line between terrorist and journalist is erased, it is not only the Jews who are endangered – everyone is.

It is time to call this what it is. People who openly cite the Quran to justify the murder of Jews are not journalists. Outlets such as Al Jazeera that give cover to these jihadist propagandists should be shunned by responsible Western media. This is not journalism – it is dangerous propaganda in a press jacket. The sooner Western newsrooms stop laundering Hamas propaganda as ‘news’ – the safer we will all be.