‘Murder weapon’: Hunger ravages Gaza journalists under Israeli siege

“Due to hunger, I lose focus and forget information during my live TV reports. On two occasions, I collapsed after finishing a report, and it turned out I had food poisoning,” Saleh Al-Natoor, Gaza correspondent for Al Araby TV, told CPJ from southern Khan Yunis, where he fled with his family to escape bombing in Gaza City in October 2023.

“We suffer from continuous hunger attacks, extreme fatigue, loss of balance, and an inability to think or perform any tasks. Sometimes I am too exhausted to search for food in the nearby street markets,” he said.

Assault on press freedom

The tiny, densely populated Gaza Strip was heavily reliant on food imports before October 7, 2023, with more than 500 trucks entering each day. Last year, journalists told CPJ they were on near-starvation rations, drinking unclean water, and foraging for scraps. CPJ has repeatedly called on the international community to urgently pressure Israel to allow food and humanitarian aid into Gaza, protect journalists, and lift the ban on media access.

Despite the images of emaciated babies on Western news channels following Israel’s March 2 blockade, international pressure has only produced what one U.N. spokesperson described as “a token that appears more like cynical optics than any real attempt to tackle the soaring hunger crisis.”

“What we are witnessing is not only a humanitarian catastrophe, but a direct, unprecedented assault on press freedom, while the world watches,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “Journalists cannot carry out their work — let alone survive — while being deliberately starved and denied life-saving aid. Israel must allow humanitarians, international media, and human rights investigators into Gaza at once.”

Firsthand testimonies from journalists in Gaza offer some insight into the daily horrors that millions of Palestinians are living through.

“It feels as though your stomach walls are collapsing into each other, and you taste bitterness in your throat, as if the digestive fluids have reached your mouth,” Al-Natoor wrote on Facebook, detailing what it feels like to experience a “hunger attack.”

“A sharp headache strikes the top of your head or a sense of emptiness surrounds your brain. When you try to stand, you feel dizzy and off-balance. You quickly try to support yourself on something and close your eyes for a while, hoping the blood will return to your brain.

“Our bodies have started to digest themselves, muscle mass is vanishing, and we suffer from extreme emaciation. Hunger is not just a metaphor —  it is truly a murder weapon we face every hour,” he posted.

Canned food, exorbitant prices

The journalists who spoke to CPJ said their diet was mainly tinned goods, sometimes supplemented with sporadic supplies of foul-smelling flour, and occasional rotting vegetables. Even these minimal supplies have become increasingly scarce and unaffordable due to an exorbitant increase in prices.

“We rely solely on canned food from aid packages — beans, cheese, processed meats that lack sufficient nutritional value. They merely help us break our hunger — not more,” Al-Natoor told CPJ.

“Even simple necessities, including canned goods, have become unavailable,” said Akram Dalloul, a correspondent for the Lebanon-based broadcaster Al-Mayadeen, whose weight has fallen from 95 to under 80 kilograms during the war.

“We are talking about a reality that is difficult to describe in words. Often, we cannot stand on our feet because there is no milk or eggs,” said Dalloul, who posted a video on Facebook of himself and his son sharing one raw eggplant as a meal.

Mohammad Al-Hajjar, a freelancer contributing to the Associated Press news agency and London-based site Middle East Eye, said journalists suffer like everyone else in Gaza.

“There are no basic food supplies — no flour, sugar, cooking oil, ghee, rice, or legumes. We only have a few canned goods and some locally grown vegetables in the southern part of the Strip,” Al-Hajjar told CPJ from Gaza City. “My eight-year-old son Majd suffered from malnutrition and dehydration during the first wave of famine at the start of the war.”

Money exchangers take 30% cut

Al-Hajjar is not the only journalist juggling work with finding food for his family.

“Fruits are non-existent, and some vegetables are available in very limited quantities and are far too expensive,” said Shrouq Al Alia, director of Ain Media production company, a correspondent for France 24 television network, and the sole parent to a toddler. “My daughter often complains of abdominal pain.”

Their poor diet has also caused stomach and colon problems for the 30-year-old, who received CPJ’s 2024 International Press Freedom Award in recognition of her courage in taking over Ain Media after her husband Roshdi Sarraj was killed on October 22, 2023.

“We face several battles: first, to find flour that is not spoiled and safe for human consumption; second, to afford the soaring prices; and third, to access cash because banks are closed,” Al Alia said, adding that the cost of a 25-kilogram sack of flour has risen from 25 to 1,500 shekels (US$7 to $418) or more — an increase of 6,900% — since the war began.

“This forces us to turn to money exchangers who take a 30% cut on any cash we withdraw,” said Al Alia, describing the system by which Palestinians transfer their money digitally to middlemen who provide them with cash since banks stopped operating.

And Israel’s blockade on cooking gas remained in place. “We rely on wood fire for cooking, which is inefficient and exhausting,” added Al Aila, whose weight has fallen from 59 to 50 kilograms during the war.

‘We work while hungry’

With the import of water purification supplies still prohibited, chronic water scarcity, and no way to manage sewage, diarrhea, scabies, and skin rashes have proliferated.

“We’ve been affected by hepatitis as a result of no food, hygiene kits, or clean water,” Majdi Esleem, a 40-year-old Palestinian reporter for the pro-Fatah Al Kofiya TV, told CPJ from Gaza City. “Most days we [journalists] work while hungry,” said the father of five.

“During work and daily life, I frequently suffer from health problems, including dizziness, difficulty seeing, constant headaches, and weakness,” said freelance photographer Abd Elhakeem Abu Riash, who contributes to Al Jazeera.

“It is extremely difficult to obtain food or even a single meal … The calories I burn during field journalism are not compensated for due to the scarcity of food.”

The Israel Defense Forces’ North America Media Desk in New York referred CPJ to the Israeli military unit overseeing humanitarian aid, COGAT, which said via email, “The IDF, through COGAT, is working to allow and facilitate the transfer of humanitarian aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip, and is also actively supporting these efforts, including by conducting regular monitoring of food stocks within the Strip.”

CPJ emailed the ministry of communications and ministry of defense requesting comment but did not receive any responses.

CPJ calls on EU, others to ensure access and aid to Gaza

As famine tightens its grip on Gaza, CPJ calls on the international community — particularly the European Union, itself currently reviewing the EU-Israel Association Agreement, and the 50 countries that make up the Media Freedom Coalition — to support the following calls to action:

● Israel and Egypt must allow immediate, unhindered media access to Gaza, so that they may directly cover the hostilities on the ground and related news stories, including starvation and the wider humanitarian toll.

● Israel should immediately facilitate access to humanitarian aid to journalists in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Journalists, like all civilians in Gaza, are struggling to obtain the essentials — such as food, water, and sanitary supplies — necessary to live, let alone to report on the reality facing Gazans.