Aid workers, doctors, journalists risk starvation alongside people in Gaza

Dozens of international humanitarian organizations warned Israel’s blockade of aid into Gaza is endangering the lives of doctors and aid workers, while a major news agency says it is trying to evacuate its remaining freelance journalists because the situation has become “untenable.”

In a joint statement, 111 international humanitarian organizations called on Israel to end its blockade, restore the full flow of food, clean water and medical supplies to Gaza, and agree to a ceasefire.

The coalition warned Wednesday that supplies in the enclave are now “totally depleted” and that humanitarian groups are “witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes.”

“As the Israeli government’s siege starves the people of Gaza, aid workers are now joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families,” said the statement, whose signatories include Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Amnesty International, and the Norwegian Refugee Council.

The statement followed a scathing indictment of Israel by 28 Western nations, who accused the country of “drip feeding” aid into the Gaza Strip. Israel’s foreign ministry rejected the joint statement – which was not signed by the US – as “disconnected from reality.

The Israeli military “must stop killing people” seeking aid in Gaza, the European Union’s top diplomat said Tuesday.

“The killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible,” Kaja Kallas, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, said in a post on X.

In the last 24 hours, 15 people, including four children, had died of starvation across Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

“Cases of malnutrition and starvation are arriving at Gaza’s hospitals every moment,” said Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, told CNN Tuesday.

Doctors and humanitarians ‘fainting’ from hunger, UN says

Gaza was already heavily dependent on aid and commercial shipments of food before Israel launched its war on Hamas, following the October 2023 attack.

Israel has previously blamed Hamas for its decision to halt aid shipments, alleging the militant group was stealing supplies and profiting from it. Hamas has denied this allegation.

Israeli authorities have also blamed United Nations agencies, accusing them of not picking up aid that is ready to move into Gaza. But the UN asserts that Israeli forces frequently deny permission to move aid within the enclave, and that much more is waiting to be allowed in.

In the statement Wednesday, the coalition of humanitarian agencies also criticized the controversial Israeli-and-US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which began operating on May 27. The organizations said shootings occurred almost daily at food distribution sites.

Juliette Touma, Director of Communications with the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said in a separate statement that seeking food had “become as deadly as the bombardments.”

She criticized the distribution scheme by the GHF as “a sadistic death-trap,” saying “snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they’re given a license to kill.”

And she added that care workers were unable to perform their duties due to a lack of food.

“Doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians” are among staff who are “hungry… fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties,” she said.

Israel has long sought to dismantle UNRWA, arguing that some of its employees are affiliated with Hamas, and that its schools teach hate against Israel. UNRWA has repeatedly denied these accusations.

As of July 21, 1,054 people had been killed while trying to get food in Gaza—766 near GHF sites and 288 near UN and other humanitarian organizations’ aid convoys, according to UN human rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan.

The Israeli military has acknowledged firing warning shots toward crowds in some instances and denied responsibility for other incidents.

In late June, the military said it had “reorganized” the approach routes to aid sites to minimize “friction with the population,” but the killings have continued.

Last Wednesday, GHF said 19 people were trampled to death and another person was fatally stabbed in a crowd crush at one of its aid sites. It was the first time the group had acknowledged deaths at one of its sites.

‘I don’t have the power to cover media anymore’

Two major media organizations have raised the alarm about their own journalists in Gaza.

Al Jazeera, which operates news channels in English and Arabic, said in a statement Wednesday that journalists in the enclave now “find themselves fighting for their own survival.”

“If we fail to act now, we risk a future where there may be no one left to tell our stories,” said Dr. Mostefa Souag, the network’s director general.

“I am drowning in hunger, trembling in exhaustion, and resisting the fainting that follows me every moment,” said Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Anas Al-Sharif in a social media post. “Gaza is dying. And we die with it,” he added.

Israel banned Al Jazeera from operating in its territory in May 2024 and has called it a mouthpiece of Hamas. Al Jazeera rejected the claims as “unfounded allegations.”

International news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP), said Tuesday it is trying to evacuate its remaining freelance staff from Gaza because the situation has become “untenable.”

Alongside Reuters and the Associated Press, Paris-headquartered AFP is one of a trio of major global news agencies that provide other media outlets with text, photo and video images from around the world.

Independent journalists are not able to operate in Gaza because of Israeli and Egyptian restrictions on entry to the strip.

Palestinian reporters have become the eyes and ears of those suffering inside Gaza during the 21-month conflict and are living in the same arduous conditions as the rest of the population.

AFP’s main journalist union Société de Journalistes (SDJ), warned on Monday that some of the news agency’s remaining freelance journalists inside Gaza were starving and too weak to work.

“Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die,” the union said in a statement.

The SDJ said AFP had been working with a freelance reporter, three photographers, and six freelance video journalists in the Gaza Strip.

The union shared a social media post from AFP staff, Bashar Taleb, who works for the agency as a photographer, describing the grave conditions in the besieged enclave.

“I don’t have the power to cover media anymore. My body is lean and I no longer have the ability to walk,” Taleb, 30, wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday, according to the SDJ’s statement.

Bashar has been living in the ruins of his home in Gaza City with his mother, four brothers, sisters and the family of one of his brothers since February, according to the statement. On Sunday morning, he reported that one of his brothers had “fallen, due to hunger.”

Another AFP staffer, identified by a single name, Ahlam, was quoted saying: “Every time I leave the tent to cover an event, do an interview or document a story, I don’t know if I’ll come back alive.”

Her biggest issue is the lack of food and water, she told the union.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Tuesday that France hopes to evacuate some journalists’ colleagues “in the coming weeks” following calls from the SDJ.

“We are dedicating lots of energy,” to get them out, Barrot said in an interview with French radio station FranceInter.

He added that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is “inhumane,” describing it as a “scandal that must stop immediately.”

AFP said it successfully evacuated eight of its employees from Gaza and their families between January and April 2024, and the agency is now “taking the same steps for its freelance staff, despite the extreme difficulty of leaving a territory subject to a strict blockade.”

“Their lives are in danger, so we urgently call on the Israeli authorities to authorize their immediate evacuation with their families,” it added.

CNN has reached out to the Israeli foreign ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office for comment.

The Israel-Gaza war has killed more journalists over the course of a year than in any other conflict since the Committee to Project Journalists began collecting data three decades ago.

At least 186 journalists and media workers were killed and 89 were imprisoned since the war began.

As food struggles to reach displaced people and the journalists among them in Gaza, the SDJ said in its statement: “Since AFP was founded in 1944, 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.”

CNN’s Joseph Ataman and Jerome Taylor contributed to this report.

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