CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter dedicated the top of his Monday morning “Reliable Sources” newsletter to shedding a tear and pouring one out for his journalist homies at Al Jazeera as they mourned for a colleague who was blown to bits by an Israeli Defense Forces airstrike. But here’s the thing, Anas Al-Sharif was a Hamas terrorist posing as a journalist. He shared posts praising the October 7 terror attacks, including an image reportedly of Sharif stomping the head of a dead Israeli during the attack.
Under the sympathetic banner of “Al Jazeera in Mourning,” Stelter kicked off the newsletter clutching his pearls about the news: “Al Jazeera English's bright red on-screen banner could not be clearer. "ISRAEL MURDERS JOURNALISTS," it has said, for the better part of twelve hours.”
Stelter also leaned on his CNN colleague Nada Bashir to praise the former terrorist:
"This has really sent shockwaves not only across the Middle East but beyond," CNN's Nada Bashir said this morning. Al-Sharif was "a household name for many in the Arabic-speaking world" for "documenting the horrors that we are seeing in the Gaza Strip."
(…)
Bashir said it's important to underscore that the strike took place "ahead of a planned expansion of Israel's occupation of parts of the Gaza Strip." Al Jazeera has asserted that Israel is trying to eliminate eyewitnesses; this morning, managing editor Mohamed Moawad called it a "systematic erasure of those who bear witness."
Despite Al Jazeera’s very long and noted history of being nothing more than a Qatari terrorist propaganda outfit, Stelter still elevated them while scoffing at the IDF’s evidence that Sharif was part of Hamas:
The Israeli military has confirmed that it targeted correspondent Anas Al-Sharif, 28, claiming that documents found in Gaza show "unequivocal proof" of his "military affiliation to Hamas." Al Jazeera strongly denies the claims; Al-Sharif personally refuted the allegation before he was killed; and CNN's story noted that "CNN cannot independently verify the documents released by the IDF."
In an X post, the IDF provided the intelligence they obtained from Hamas’s documentation pointing to Sharif’s affiliation:
Al-Sharif was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell and advanced rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF troops. Intelligence and documents from Gaza, including rosters, terrorist training lists and salary records, prove he was a Hamas operative integrated into Al Jazeera.
“A press badge isn’t a shield for terrorism,” they ended the post.
If Stelter wasn’t going to take the IDF’s word for it, how about the BBC’s?
“Anas al-Sharif, who has been a familiar face on Al Jazeera for much of the war, worked for a Hamas media team in Gaza before the current conflict,” reported the BBC’s Jon Donnison. Donnison went on to whine that the IDF “produced little evidence to support that” Sharif was the head of a Hamas cell. He also claimed Sharif “can be heard criticising [sic] Hamas” in social media posts before his death, but provided no evidence of those purported posts.
What evidence did exist was of Sharif glorifying the October 7 attacks.
In an X post, Michael Leiter, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., showed a Telegram post from Sharif celebrating: “9 hours and the heroes are still roaming the country killing and capturing …God, God, how great you are [three green heart emojis].” There was also a picture of Sharif being embraced by Yahya Sinwar, the deceased head of Hamas in Gaza.
There’s also reportedly a graphic Telegram post from Sharif with a picture of him stomping the head of dead IDF soldier from during October 7. Translated text read: “Whenever you feel that morale is not good, remember that we hit them on the head in the middle of their military sites.”
The Times of Israel also had a series of photos of Sharif taking a selfie with Hamas’s leadership.
It’s worth recalling that Stelter’s CNN had ties to journalists connected to Hamas.
A month after October 7, it came to light (thanks to HonestReporting), that CNN (along with The New York Times, the Associated Press, and Reuters) had received pictures from Gazan photojournalists embedded with Hamas as they carried out the attack.
In particular, CNN’s photos were from a terrorist named Hassan Eslaiah who could also be seen in pictures being embraced by Sinwar. Eslaiah accompanied the attackers who assaulted Kibbutz Kfar Azza and he did not wear anything that identified himself as a journalist and apparently attempted to hide that he was present during the attack.
In a statement to NewsBusters, at the time, CNN said they were no longer going to work with Eslaiah. “We had no prior knowledge of the October 7th attacks. Hassan Eslaiah, who was a freelance journalist working for us and many other outlets, was not working for the network on October 7th. As of today, we have severed all ties with him,” a CNN spokesperson said.
