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Four leading news organizations said Thursday their journalists in Gaza are facing the threat of starvation as the Israel-Hamas war grinds on, as ceasefire negotiations appeared to stall after Israel and the United States recalled their delegations, cutting the talks short.
“We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families,” said a joint statement by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters and the BBC.
“For many months, these independent journalists have been the world’s eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza. They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering.”
The statement called on Israel to allow journalists in and out of Gaza and allow adequate food supplies into the territory. Israel has barred international media from entering Gaza independently throughout the 21-month war.
CBC News freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife says he, his wife and their two children are also facing hunger each day in the Gaza Strip. Some days, he says, he is lucky to find half of a pita bread to eat to allow him to remain on his feet covering the latest developments on the ground — but his biggest worry is feeding his family.
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking Wednesday, described the situation on the ground in Gaza as ‘mass starvation’ and called for the urgent delivery of more aid.
“The situation is difficult.… I go to sleep and wake up worried about what I’m going to do [to feed my family],” El Saife said Thursday.
“I worry if there is an even worse situation awaiting us or if this is as bad as it will get.”
It came a day after more than 100 charity and human rights groups said that Israel’s blockade and ongoing military offensive are pushing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip toward starvation.
On Thursday, Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu denied that Palestinians in Gaza were not getting enough food, adding that Israel is advancing the destruction of Gaza.
The far-right minister who is known for making inflammatory statements denigrating Palestinians and is not in charge of military operations told Haredi Israeli radio station Kol Barama that the Gaza Strip will be cleared for Jewish settlements.
“The government is racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out,” Eliyahu told the radio station, according to the Times of Israel. “Thank God, we are wiping out this evil … We don’t need to be concerned with hunger in the Strip. Let the world worry about it.”
In May, Eliyahu pushed for Israel to bomb food and fuel reserves in Gaza to starve the population as a means of applying pressure on Hamas.
Ceasefire talks cut early
U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said the U.S. is cutting short Gaza ceasefire talks and bringing home its negotiating team from Qatar for consultations after the latest response from Hamas “shows a lack of desire to reach a ceasefire in Gaza.”
“While the mediators have made a great effort, Hamas does not appear to be co-ordinated or acting in good faith,” Witkoff said. “We will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza.”
He said it was “a shame that Hamas has acted in this selfish way” and that the U.S. is “resolute” in seeking an end to the conflict in Gaza.
An Israeli official with knowledge of the talks said the answer presented by Hamas to the most recent ceasefire proposal “does not allow for progress without a concession” by the group but that Israel intended to continue discussions.
Jack Latour, a Canadian nurse working with Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, says parents are resorting to desperate measures to feed their children as conditions on the ground deteriorate. ‘We are seeing now families with multiple children that have severe acute malnutrition, instead of just maybe the youngest one,’ Latour says.
The deal under discussion was expected to include a 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Aid supplies would be ramped up and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting truce.
The sides have held weeks of talks in Qatar, reporting small signs of progress but no major breakthroughs. Officials have said a main sticking point is the redeployment of Israeli troops after any ceasefire takes place.
Dozens of people starve to death in Gaza
Dozens of people have starved to death in Gaza the last few weeks as a wave of hunger crashes on the Palestinian enclave, according to local health authorities. The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that 21 children under the age of five were among those who died of malnutrition so far this year.
Later on Thursday, the Gaza Health Ministry said two more people had died of malnutrition. The head of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said the two were patients suffering from other illnesses who died after going without food for several days.
The war between Israel and Hamas has been raging for nearly two years since Hamas killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages from southern Israel in the deadliest single attack in Israel’s history.
Israel has since killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, decimated Hamas as a military force, reduced most of the territory to ruins and forced nearly the entire population to flee their homes multiple times.
Israeli forces on Thursday hit the central Gaza towns of Nuseirat, Deir Al-Balah and Bureij.
Health officials at Al-Awda Hospital said three people were killed in an airstrike on a house in Nuseirat, three more died from tank shelling in Deir Al-Balah, and separate airstrikes in Bureij killed a man and a woman and wounded several others.
Nasser hospital said three people were killed by Israeli gunfire while seeking aid in southern Gaza near the so-called Morag axis between Khan Younis and Rafah. The Israeli military said Palestinian militants had fired a projectile overnight from Khan Younis toward an aid distribution site near Morag. It was not immediately clear whether the incidents were linked.