Gaza City (AFP) — Condemnations poured in from the United Nations, the EU and media rights groups Monday after an Israeli strike killed an Al Jazeera news team in Gaza, as Palestinians mourned the journalists and Israel accused one of them of being a Hamas militant.

Dozens of Gazans stood amid bombed-out buildings in the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City to pay their respects to Anas al-Sharif, a prominent Al Jazeera correspondent aged 28, and four of his colleagues killed on Sunday.

Hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya said a sixth journalist, freelance reporter Mohammed Al-Khaldi, was killed in the strike that targeted the Al Jazeera team.

Mourners including men wearing blue journalists’ flak jackets carried their bodies, wrapped in white shrouds with their faces exposed, through narrow alleys to their graves.

Israel confirmed it had targeted Sharif, whom it labelled a “terrorist” affiliated with Hamas, alleging he “posed as a journalist.”

Al Jazeera said four other employees — correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa — were killed when the strike hit a tent set up for journalists outside the main gate of Al-Shifa.

An Israeli military statement accused Sharif of heading a Hamas “terrorist cell” and being “responsible for advancing rocket attacks” against Israelis.

The military released documents alleging to show the date of Sharif’s enlistment with Hamas in 2013, an injury report from 2017 and the name of his military unit and rank.

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 publicize events organized by the group that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2006.

Sharif was one of Al Jazeera’s most recognizable faces working in Gaza, providing daily reports on the now 22-month-old war.

Media freedom groups have condemned the Israeli strike on journalists, which the UN human rights agency called a “grave breach of international humanitarian law.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Monday that “the EU condemns the killing of five Al Jazeera journalists.”

A posthumous message, written by Sharif in April in case of his death, was published online saying he had been silenced and urging people “not to forget Gaza.”

In July, the Committee to Protect Journalists called for his protection following online posts by an Israeli military spokesman.