ARTICLE 19 strongly condemns Israel’s ongoing efforts to block humanitarian aid to Gaza, which are having a devastating impact on civilians, including journalists reporting on the worsening hunger crisis. The situation has reached unprecedented and alarming levels, with numerous media organisations and journalist unions warning that their colleagues are at serious risk of starvation after enduring months of threats, attacks, and deliberate targeting since the war began in October 2023. ARTICLE 19 joins other human rights and humanitarian organisations in urgently calling on Israel to allow immediate access to humanitarian aid in Gaza and to permit the entry of foreign media into the territory.
As the blockade continues, journalists – the very people tasked with documenting and reporting on atrocities, the devastating impact of the humanitarian blockade and amplifying the voices of those on the ground – are themselves facing starvation. As the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) documented, reporters in Gaza are collapsing after live broadcasts, falling ill from drinking contaminated water, and unable to afford what little food remains.
With foreign journalists still barred from entering Gaza, and the territory now recording the highest number of journalist and media worker deaths in modern history – many deliberately targeted – there is an extremely limited number of local journalists still able to report under the most harrowing circumstances. These few, essential to informing the world about the ongoing catastrophe, are now being silenced by hunger and deteriorating health as Israel’s blockade on fuel, food, and aid persist. The Israeli-backed aid distribution system has come under severe criticism, with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stating that over 1000 people have been killed by the Israeli army while trying to get food.
International humanitarian law prohibits the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, which may also constitute a war crime.
ARTICLE 19 is deeply alarmed by the ongoing humanitarian crisis and the use of starvation as a weapon against civilians, including journalists. Palestinians have endured nearly two years of war, and the journalists who remain are working under unbearable and life-threatening conditions.
We join the Committee to Protect Journalists in calling on the international community – particularly the European Union and the countries part of the Media Freedom Coalition – to urgently back the following calls:
- Israel should immediately facilitate access to humanitarian aid in Gaza. 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
- 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.