JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP)—Media advocacy group the Committee to Protect Journalists on Monday slammed an Israeli strike that killed several Al Jazeera staff in Gaza overnight, saying journalists should never be targeted in war.

“Journalists are civilians. They must never be targeted in war. And to do so is a war crime,” Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told AFP.

The CPJ in July called for the protection of Anas al-Sharif, one of the journalists killed in the Israeli strike, after an Israeli military spokesman claimed he was a militant, accusing Israel of a “pattern” of labelling journalists militants “without providing credible evidence”.

Numerous Al Jazeera staff in Gaza have faced similar accusations from the Israeli military during the war.

According to local journalists who knew him, Sharif had worked at the start of his career with a Hamas communication office, where his role was to publicise events organised by the militant group that has exercised total control over Gaza since 2006.

“International law is clear that active combatants are the only justified targets in a war setting,” Ginsberg said.

“So unless the IDF can demonstrate that Anas al-Sharif was still an active combatant, then there is no justification for his killing,” she said, using an acronym for the Israeli military.