By SAM METZ and SAMY MAGDY, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military targeted and killed an Al Jazeera correspondent and others with an airstrike late Sunday in Gaza, after press advocates said an Israeli “smear campaign” stepped up when Anas al-Sharif cried on air over starvation in the territory.

Both Israel and hospital officials in Gaza City confirmed the deaths of al-Sharif and colleagues, which the Committee to Protect Journalists and others described as retribution against those documenting the war in Gaza. Israel’s military asserted that al-Sharif had led a Hamas cell — an allegation that Al Jazeera and al-Sharif previously dismissed as baseless.

It was the first time during the 22-month war that Israel’s military swiftly claimed responsibility after a journalist was killed in a strike. Observers have called this the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern times.

Colleagues and friends mourn over the body Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamed Qureiqa who was killed with his colleague Anas al-Sharif and other journalists by an Israeli airstrike, at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Officials at Shifa Hospital said those killed while sheltering outside Gaza City’s largest hospital complex also included Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamed Qreiqeh. The strike also killed four other journalists and two other people, hospital administrative director Rami Mohanna told The Associated Press. The strike damaged the entrance to the hospital complex’s emergency building.

The airstrike came less than a year after Israeli army officials first accused al-Sharif and other Al Jazeera journalists of being members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In a July 24 video, Israel’s army spokesperson Avichay Adraee attacked Al Jazeera and accused al-Sharif of being part of Hamas’ military wing.

Al Jazeera calls strike ‘assassination’

Al Jazeera called the strike a “targeted assassination” and accused Israeli officials of incitement, connecting al-Sharif’s death to the allegations that both the network and correspondent had denied.

“Anas and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices from within Gaza, providing the world with unfiltered, on-the-ground coverage of the devastating realities endured by its people,” the Qatari network said in a statement.

Palestinians pray over the bodies of journalists, including Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohamed Qreiqeh, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike, during their funeral outside Gaza City’s Shifa hospital complex, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Apart from rare invitations to observe Israeli military operations, international media have been barred from entering Gaza for the duration of the war. Al Jazeera is among the few outlets still fielding a big team of reporters inside the besieged strip, chronicling daily life amid airstrikes, hunger and the rubble of destroyed neighborhoods.

Al Jazeera is blocked in Israel and soldiers raided its offices in the occupied West Bank last year, ordering them closed.

The network has suffered heavy losses during the war, including 27-year-old correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi, killed last summer, and freelancer Hossam Shabat, killed in an Israeli airstrike in March.

Like al-Sharif, Shabat was among the six that Israel accused of being members of militant groups last October.

Al-Sharif’s death comes weeks after a U.N. expert and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Israel had targeted him with a smear campaign.

Irene Khan, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, on July 31 said that the killings were “part of a deliberate strategy of Israel to suppress the truth, obstruct the documentation of international crimes and bury any possibility of future accountability.”

The U.N. human rights office on Monday condemned Sunday’s airstrike targeting the journalists’ tent “in grave breach of international humanitarian law.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Sunday that at least 186 journalists have been killed in Gaza, and Brown University’s Watson Institute in April said the war was “quite simply, the worst ever conflict for reporters.”

Funeral-goers call to protect journalists

Al-Sharif reported a nearby bombardment minutes before his death. In a social media post that Al Jazeera said was written to be posted in case of his death, he bemoaned the devastation and destruction that war had wrought and bid farewell to his wife, son and daughter.

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“I never hesitated for a single day to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification,” the 28-year-old wrote.

Hundreds of people, including many journalists, gathered Monday to mourn al-Sharif, Qreiqeh and their colleagues. The bodies lay wrapped in white sheets at the Shifa Hospital complex.

Ahed Ferwana of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said reporters were being deliberately targeted and urged the international community to act.

Al-Sharif began reporting for Al Jazeera a few days after war broke out. He was known for reporting on Israel’s bombardment in northern Gaza, and later for the starvation gripping much of the territory’s population.

In a July broadcast, al-Sharif cried on air as a woman behind him collapsed from hunger.

“I am talking about slow death of those people,” he said at the time.

Qreiqeh, a 33-year-old Gaza City native, is survived by two children.

Both journalists were separated from their families for months earlier in the war. When they managed to reunite during the ceasefire earlier this year, their children appeared unable to recognize them, according to video footage they posted at the time.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said Sunday it was appalled by the airstrike.

“Israel’s pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” Sara Qudah, the group’s regional director, said in a statement.

Magdy reported from Cairo.

By LORNE COOK, Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — Ukraine and its backers in Europe insist that the United States and Russia cannot decide on land swaps behind their backs at a summit this week, but the Europeans concede that Moscow is unlikely to give up control of Ukrainian land it holds.

Ahead of the summit in Alaska on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that a peace deal could include “some swapping of territories,” but the Europeans see no sign that Russia will offer anything to swap. Europeans and Ukrainians so far are not invited to the summit.

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European Union foreign ministers are meeting on Monday following talks on Ukraine among U.S. and European security advisers over the weekend. They are wary that President Vladimir Putin will try to claim a political victory by portraying Ukraine as inflexible.

Concerns have mounted in Europe and Ukraine that Kyiv may be pressed to give up land or accept other curbs on its sovereignty. Ukraine and its European allies reject the notion that Putin should lay claim to any territory even before agreeing to a ceasefire.

“As we work towards a sustainable and just peace, international law is clear: All temporarily occupied territories belong to Ukraine,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said ahead of the ministerial meeting.

“A sustainable peace also means that aggression cannot be rewarded,” Kallas said.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said “it must be obvious to Poland and our European partners — and I hope to all of NATO — that state borders cannot be changed by force.” Any land swaps or peace terms “must be agreed upon with Ukraine’s participation,” he said, according to Polish news agency PAP.

On Sunday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Germany would not accept that territorial issues be discussed or decided by Russia and the United States “over the heads” of Europeans or Ukrainians.

Still, it’s hard to ignore the reality on the ground.

Russia in 2022 illegally annexed the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraine’s east, and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south, even though it doesn’t fully control them. It also occupies the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014.

On the 620-mile front line, Russia’s bigger army has made slow but costly progress with its summer offensive. The relentless pounding of urban areas has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to U.N. estimates.

“In the end, the issue of the fact that the Russians are controlling at this moment, factually, a part of Ukraine has to be on the table” in any peace talks after the Alaska summit, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on CBS on Sunday.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte accompanied by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., left and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., right, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Rutte said Ukraine’s Western backers “can never accept that in a legal sense,” but he suggested that they might tacitly acknowledge Russian control.

He compared it to the way that the U.S. hosted the diplomatic missions of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from 1940 to 1991, “acknowledging that the Soviet Union was controlling those territories, but never accepting (it) in a legal sense.”

Giving up any territory, especially without a ceasefire agreement first, would be almost impossible for Zelenskyy to sell at home after thousands of troops have died defending their land.

Ultimately, Putin is seen as being not so much interested in land itself, but rather in a more “Russia-friendly” Ukraine with a malleable government that would be unlikely to try to join NATO, just as pro-Russian regions in Georgia stymied that country’s hopes of becoming a member.

Zelenskyy insists that a halt to fighting on the front line should be the starting point for negotiations, and the Europeans back him. They say that any future land swaps should be for Ukraine to decide and not be a precondition for a ceasefire.

Claims on land could also be part of negotiations on the kind of security guarantees that Ukraine might receive to ensure another war does not break out.

The Europeans believe Kyiv’s best defense is strong armed forces to deter Russia from striking again. They insist there should be no restrictions on the size of Ukraine’s army and the equipment, arms and ammunition it can possess or sell.

Beyond that, they say Ukraine should not be constrained in its choice of joining the EU or being forced to become a neutral country. The Trump administration has already taken Ukraine’s membership of NATO off the table for the foreseeable future.

Associated Press writers Dasha Litvinova, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed.

NEW YORK — When Carlos Correa picked up the phone on the afternoon of July 31, he could almost sense the words he was about to hear by the tone in Derek Falvey’s voice.

“Something was different, and that’s when I knew,” Correa said.

Suddenly, he had a decision to make.

Correa had never envisioned leaving the Twins, but given the option to go back to Houston, where he began his career, where he maintains his offseason home, where he would be playing for a first-place team, or stay in Minnesota, where it became clear that much of the roster was about to be torn down as the Twins hit the “reset” button.

The three-time all-star took time to process his options. He called his wife, Daniella, a Texas native. He phoned his agent, Scott Boras. Then he chose Houston, and waived his no-trade clause.

“I love Minnesota. I love my house there, living there and the people. So, I never thought I would leave,” Correa said Sunday, hours before he went 2 for 5 with a home run in the Astros’ win over the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. “Then this opportunity arose where the situation in Minnesota, the next three years, I don’t want to be rebuilding. I wanted to be able to have a chance to win.”

Increasingly, that looked less and less likely in Minnesota.

Correa and Falvey, the Twins’ president of baseball and business operations, had spoken on Wednesday. Falvey, he said, did not use the word “rebuild,” but the infielder got the sense that the trades — many of them — were coming.

Still, he didn’t think the sell-off would include him. Correa found out on Wednesday morning that the Astros, the team that drafted him first overall in 2012, had engaged the Twins in trade conversations. Correa’s contract included a no-trade clause and there was only one team he would waive it to go to.

Talks weren’t close initially.

The Astros wanted the Twins to pay down more of Correa’s contract — he is making $36 million this year and had three more years remaining on his six-year, $200 million contract after this one — while the Twins were trying to shed payroll.

Correa traveled to Cleveland with his teammates that Wednesday night and on Thursday, the day of the trade deadline, he detached from his phone and everything going on. The noted Marvel fan instead went to the movies to see “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”

After the film finished, he headed back to the team’s hotel. He was hanging out there when Falvey called.

He approved the deal and was heading back to Houston. In return, the Twins received minor league pitcher Matt Mikulski, who has yet to pitch above Single-A Advanced at age 26. The Twins were sending money along with Correa, but will ultimately save around $70 million across the life of the contract.

Almost as stunningly as he arrived, Correa was gone.

Minnesota Twins’ president of baseball operations Derek Falvey, left, takes questions alongside Twins’ Carlos Correa, center, and agent Scott Boras during a baseball press conference at Target Field, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023, in Minneapolis. The team and Correa agreed to a six-year, $200 million contract. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

The Twins first agreed to a middle-of-the-night deal with Correa in March of 2022 after he was unable to find the long-term deal he was looking for in free agency during the lockout-disrupted offseason. He signed a three-year, $105.3 million deal with the Twins but opted out after a strong first year in Minnesota in search of a more-permanent home.

He seemed to find it in San Francisco, and then New York, agreeing to deals with the Giants and Mets before each team backed out because of an ankle issue stemming many years back. Finally, he told Boras to get him to Minnesota. The Twins had been interested in bringing him back, though they were not offering nearly as much as either of the other two clubs.

Still, Correa’s contract, the largest in team history, represented a large financial commitment from ownership. Months later, the Twins made another big commitment, handing out a four-year contract extension to ace Pablo López worth $73.5 million.

Those two helped the Twins win a division title in 2023. Once in the playoffs, the Twins laid to rest their 18-game playoff losing streak, which dated back to 2002, before eventually falling in the American League Division Series to the Astros.

It was a time of great optimism in Minnesota. The taste of playoff success had seemingly rejuvenated the team and its fanbase. But almost as soon as that hopefulness returned, it was tugged away when ownership decided to slash payroll.

“I think it was a shock to all of us after the playoffs in ’23 and then when they cut back, it was a little confusing to a lot of us in there, but that’s the way it happened,” Correa said.

Even so, he said, “I never thought I would get traded,” even though he was most expensive player on a team intent on lowering its expenses. Less than halfway into the life of his contract, he was on the way out.

He has fit seamlessly back into the Houston clubhouse, reuniting with old teammates such as Jose Altuve and Lance McCullers Jr., with whom he won a World Series with in 2017.

Correa is a third baseman now, welcoming the change after asking the Twins in recent years if he could shift off shortstop, believing it would be better for his health. Though his defensive numbers had slipped a bit, Correa was still the best shortstop within the Twins’ organization, which is why the move never happened.

Houston Astros’ Carlos Correa runs the bases after hitting a home run during the ninth inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

It’s something, he said, he started asking about two years ago when he started dealing with plantar fasciitis, first in his left foot and then last year in his right foot, limiting him to 86 games.

“I felt like it would be better for my body and it would also help my hitting because I wouldn’t feel as tired going into the games and the recovery process and all that,” Correa said. “Now that I’m playing third base, I can see how good it is.”

After a slow start to the season at the plate, Correa said he felt good at there in July, though was not getting the results for which he was looking. But through his first nine games as an Astro, he said, “Everything (is) clicking.” Correa is hitting .405 with a 1.098 OPS, two home runs, a pair of doubles and six RBIs since the trade.

He will return to Houston finally — the Astros have been on the road since the trade deadline — on Monday, where he is sure to get a hero’s welcome at Daikin Park. He was never able to accomplish what he set out to do in Minnesota, but now right back where he started, he has that chance again.

“We never got the job done like we wanted,” Correa said. “I wish that would have been the case, but now it’s a new chapter in my journey.”

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