The BBC, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Reuters and the Associated Press issued a statement declaring they are “desperately concerned” for their local journalists in Gaza, who are now struggling to survive amid a total collapse of access to food, clean water and medical services.
“For many months, these independent journalists have been the world’s eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza,” the statement read. “They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering… the threat of starvation is now one of them.”
With Israel continuing to block access for foreign media, Palestinian reporters—many of them freelancers—have been the sole witnesses to the devastation inflicted by Israel’s campaign of extermination.
AFP has issued an urgent request to Israeli authorities to allow the immediate evacuation of its freelance contributors and their families, warning that “without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die.”
Freelancers working for international outlets have reported severe exhaustion, illness and an inability to continue reporting due to prolonged hunger. One AFP photographer said on social media: “I no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work anymore.”
The Society of Journalists at AFP added: “We have lost journalists in conflicts: some have been injured; others taken prisoner. But none of us can ever remember seeing colleagues die of hunger.”
The stark warnings come amid growing global condemnation of Israel’s deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war. Multiple UN agencies have declared that famine is imminent in Gaza, with one in five children now severely malnourished and entire families surviving on grass, animal feed and contaminated water.
“We once again urge the Israeli authorities to allow journalists in and out of Gaza,” the joint media statement concluded. “It is essential that adequate food supplies reach the people there.”
With reports of more than 232 journalists killed since October—more than in any conflict in modern history—Gaza is now not only one of the deadliest places in the world to be a journalist, but increasingly one where reporting the truth can cost a reporter their life through hunger alone.