In May, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) wrote about the desperate situation facing journalists in Gaza, who were having to report while dangerously hungry. My colleagues documented the gnawing hunger, dizziness, brain fog and sickness all experienced by an exhausted Palestinian press corps already living and working in terrifying conditions. Eight weeks later, that desperate situation is now catastrophic.
Several news organizations are now warning that their journalists – those documenting what is happening inside Gaza – will die unless urgent action is taken to stop Israel’s deliberate refusal to allow sufficient food into the territory. “Since AFP was founded in August 1944, we have lost journalists in conflicts, we have had wounded and prisoners in our ranks, but none of us can recall seeing a colleague die of hunger,” an association of journalists from the Agence France-Presse wrote in a statement on Monday. “We refuse to watch them die.” Two days later, the Qatari broadcast network Al Jazeera said its journalists – like all Palestinians in Gaza– were “fighting for their own survival” and warned: “If we fail to act now, we risk a future where there may be no one left to tell our stories.”
