On Tuesday's CNN This Morning, CNN global affairs correspondent Kimberly Dozier said it "doesn't matter" if al-Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif was a Hamas operative. What's important is that he was "reporting on air on a prominent channel to millions of people."
So it was wrong for Israel to kill him. According to Dozier, what the IDF should have done was to build a case on al-Sharif, "present it to Al Jazeera and say, you've got to fire this guy."
Try to imagine that conversation:
"Hi, is this the Al Jazeera HR department? Okay, great. This is the IDF calling. Look, hate to bother you, but you know that journalist of yours in Gaza, Anas al-Sharif?
"This is probably gonna come as a shock to you, but turns out he's been a member of Hamas for over 10 years, was involved in rocket attacks on Israel, has hung out with top Hamas leaders, and is on the Hamas payroll.
"So, anyhow, we were wondering if you might consider recalling him to Qatar, or even—and we don't want to go overboard—but even, you know, possibly firing him?"
Go ahead and laugh. Say that's the most absurd scenario you've ever heard of for a country at war to engage in. But that's journalists putting "journalists" affiliated with terrorists above other humans.
Sorry, Ms. Dozier, but that's not how it works in war. If you are an enemy combatant, you are a legitimate target—no advance notice to your boss or requests for your canning required.
Israel has already released considerable proof of al-Sharif's Hamas connection, and says it has much more classified information proving it. Perhaps we'll be seeing more in days to come, but in any case, Dozier's suggestion deserves derision.
The BBC reports that Al-Jazeera has "rejected the allegation" by Israel that al-Sharif was head of a Hamas terrorist cell. So asking Al-Jazeera to fire him would have been fruitless, and would have only resulted in Al Jazeera warning al-Sharif, thus possibly letting the terrorists escape.
See the photo of al-Sharif hugging it up with Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the October 7th atrocities.
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
8/11/25
6:36 am EDTAUDIE CORNISH: OK, I want to move on to another war the president has not been able to make big changes in, which is the war in Gaza.
The death of several Al Jazeera journalists now raising questions about press freedoms and war zones. Israel says it targeted and killed Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif after accusing him of leading a Hamas cell, something both he and Al Jazeera denied.
Just minutes before his death, he posted on X saying, quote, if this madness does not end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, and history will remember you as a silent witness to genocide.
. . .
I first just want to defer to a journalist who's done some wartime reporting. Can you talk about how people are perceiving this in that community?
KIMBERLY DOZIER. Now, the Israeli Defense Forces are saying he was a Hamas operative. No one in the Arab world, few people in the journalist world, believe that. And it doesn't matter. He was reporting on air to, on a prominent channel to millions of people.
CORNISH: So it's the issue that targeting, that they're just like, yes.
DOZIER: You know, the Israelis didn't build a case and present it in international court or present it to Al Jazeera and say, you've got to fire this guy.
Instead, they took him out, plus several of his colleagues in a strike, claimed responsibility for it afterwards, thereby sending a message to anyone else, any other journalist who wants to try to cover inside Gaza what's about to happen to Gaza City.
The message is, this could happen to you.
CORNISH: To be clear, I don't think journalists are allowed inside right this time.
DOZIER: International journalists, international journalists aren't. But even the lens grows dimmer.
DOZIER: Yeah, every media outlet uses a trusted correspondent inside Gaza. That's what this team was for Al Jazeera.
And they've all now been told, it doesn't matter how prominent you are, if you say something wrong or we perceive you as having talked to Hamas too much, we can take you out.
