Updated 1.15pm with response from Roberta Metsola

Matthew Caruana Galizia has challenged Roberta Metsola and the European People’s Party to speak out louder for starving journalists in Gaza, in a scathing post which contrasted MEPs’ silence on the issue to their declarations about his murdered mother.

“If Roberta Metsola and other EPP politicians had to speak as loudly for each of these journalists as they did for my mother, they would be speaking about them for the rest of their lives. Are they children of a lesser god?” the son of assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.

His pointed remarks come in the wake of a dire warning from Agence France-Presse (AFP) that its remaining journalists in Gaza are “dying of hunger.”

The AFP’s editorial committee said that without immediate assistance, “the last reporters in Gaza will die” from starvation.

The EPP is the largest political grouping within the parliament. It has said little about the ongoing assault on Gaza, with the only press release it has issued about the conflict this year relating to calls by Maltese EPP MEP David Casa to consider sanctioning the Israeli government for its slaughter of civilians in Gaza.

Metsola, who also forms part of the EPP, has also said little about the conflict this past year and has stopped short of condemning Israel. She has faced criticism for what some perceive as a timid reaction compared to her strong condemnation of other conflicts, particularly the war in Ukraine.

Critics have pointed to her initial strong solidarity with Israel after the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, contrasting it with a perceived lack of equally forceful condemnation or action regarding Israel’s military actions and the ensuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which some have described as genocidal.

In June, she said the European Parliament would be “the first ones to speak” if civilians were indiscriminately bombed in Gaza.

A spokesperson for Metsola said she has always stood up for journalists and civilians and would keep doing so.

“Matthew Caruana Galizia is right,” her spokesperson said. “Far too many civilians and far too many journalists have been killed by Israel in Gaza. This is something that Roberta Metsola has spoken out on time and time again and will continue to do so. This is why she has continuously kept up efforts for a lasting peaceful solution.”

A grim picture

Israel’s bombing and isolation of Gaza has drawn increasingly vocal global condemnation. The United Nations has said hundreds of civilians have been killed while waiting for food, water and medical supplies in recent weeks.

The international press has been blocked from entering Gaza for almost two years, forcing news agencies like AFP to rely on local freelance journalists to provide information, photographs and videos of the situation there.

AFP said one of its photographers informed his colleagues last week that he was too weak to work. Another said her greatest concern was being starved of food and water.

The agency’s editorial committee detailed how inflated food prices consume meagre monthly salaries, and fuel shortages force reporters to navigate the perilous territory on foot or by donkey cart, increasing their vulnerability.

“Since AFP was founded in 1944, we have lost journalists in conflicts, we have had wounded and prisoners in our ranks, but none of us can ever remember seeing a colleague die of hunger,” the union’s statement revealed, underscoring the unprecedented nature of the crisis.

AFP journalists in the Gaza Strip said Tuesday that chronic food shortages are affecting their ability to cover Israel’s conflict with Hamas militants.

Palestinian text, photo and video journalists working for the international news agency said desperate hunger and lack of clean water is making them ill and exhausted.

Some have even had to cut back on their coverage of the war, now in its 22nd month, with one journalist saying “we have no energy left due to hunger”.

The United Nations in June condemned what it claimed was Israel’s “weaponisation of food” in Gaza and called it a war crime, as aid agencies urge action and warnings about malnutrition multiply.

Israel says humanitarian aid is being allowed into Gaza and accuses Hamas of exploiting civilian suffering, including by stealing food handouts to sell at inflated prices or shooting at those awaiting aid.

Witnesses and Gaza’s civil defence agency, however, have repeatedly accused Israeli forces of firing on aid seekers, with the UN saying the military had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food since late May.

Bashar Taleb, 35, is one of four AFP photographers in Gaza who were shortlisted for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize earlier this year. He lives in the bombed-out ruins of his home in Jabalia al-Nazla, in northern Gaza.

“I’ve had to stop working multiple times just to search for food for my family and loved ones,” he said. “I feel for the first time utterly defeated emotionally.

“I’ve tried so much, knocked on many doors to save my family from starvation, constant displacement and persistent fear but so far to no avail.”

Another Pulitzer nominee, Omar al-Qattaa, 35, is staying in the remains of his wife’s family’s home after his own apartment was destroyed.

“I’m exhausted from carrying heavy cameras on my shoulders and walking long distances,” he said. “We can’t even reach coverage sites because we have no energy left due to hunger and lack of food.”

Qattaa relies on painkillers for a back complaint, but said basic medicines were not available in pharmacies, and the lack of vitamins and nutritious food have added to his difficulties.

The constant headaches and dizziness he has suffered due to lack of food and water have also afflicted AFP contributor Khadr Al-Zanoun, 45, in Gaza City, who said he has even collapsed because of it.

“Since the war began, I’ve lost about 30 kilos (66 pounds) and become skeletal compared to how I looked before the war,” he said.

“I used to finish news reports and stories quickly. Now I barely manage to complete one report per day due to extreme physical and mental fatigue and near-delirium.”

Worse, though, was the effect on his family, he said.

“They’re barely hanging on,” he added.

Eyad Baba, another photojournalist, was displaced from his home in Rafah, in the south, to a tent in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, where the Israeli military this week began ground operations for the first time.

But he could not bear life in the sprawling camp, so he instead rented an apartment at an inflated price to try to at least provide his family some comfort.

Baba, 47, has worked non-stop for 14 months, away from his family and friends, documenting the bloody aftermath of bullets and bombs, and the grief that comes with it.

Hardest to deal with, though, is the lack of food, he said.

“I can no longer bear the hunger. Hunger has reached my children and has shaken my resolve,” he added.

“We’ve psychologically endured every kind of death during our press coverage. Fear and the sense of looming death accompany us wherever we work or live.”

Working as a journalist in Gaza is to work “under the barrel of a gun”, he explained, but added: “The pain of hunger is sharper than the fear of bombing.

“Hunger robs you of focus, of the ability to think amid the horrors of war.”

The director of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, warned on Tuesday that Gaza was heading towards “alarming numbers of deaths” due to lack of food, revealing that 21 children had died from malnutrition and starvation in the last three days.

AFP text journalist Ahlam Afana, 30, said an exhausting “cash crisis” — from exorbitant bank charges and sky-high prices for what food is available — was adding to the issue.

Cash withdrawals carry fees of up to 45 percent, said Zanoun, with high prices for fuel — where it is available — making getting around by car impossible, even if the streets were not blocked by rubble.

“Prices are outrageous,” said Afana. “A kilo of flour sells for 100-150 shekels ($30-45), beyond our ability to buy even one kilo a day.

“Rice is 100 shekels, sugar is over 300 shekels, pasta is 80 shekels, a litre of oil is 85-100 shekels, tomatoes 70-100 shekels. Even seasonal fruits now — grapes, figs — cost 100 shekels per kilo.

“We can’t afford them. I don’t even remember how they taste.”

Afana said she keeps working from a worn-out tent in intense heat that can reach more than 30C, but going days without food and only some water makes it a struggle.

“I move slowly, unlike before,” she said. “The danger isn’t just the bombing. Hunger is slowly killing our bodies and threatening our ability to carry on.

“Now, I’m not just reporting the news. I’m living the catastrophe and documenting it at the same time.”

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on July 8 that more than 200 journalists had been killed in Gaza since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war.

Video journalist Youssef Hassouna, 48, said the loss of colleagues, friends and family had tested him as a human being “in every possible way”.

But despite “a heavy emptiness”, he said he carries on. “Every frame I capture might be the last trace of a life buried beneath the earth,” he added.

“In this war, life as we know it has become impossible.”

Zuheir Abu Atileh, 60, worked at AFP’s Gaza office, and shared the experience of his journalist colleagues, calling the situation “catastrophic”.

“I prefer death over this life,” he said. “We have no strength left; we’re exhausted and collapsing. Enough is enough.”

Hunger has only added to the strain of documenting constant death and destruction after more than 21 months of war, AFP journalists say (Credit: AFP)

AFP journalists say the difficulties in obtaining enough food to support their families has become an unbearable burden (Credit: AFP)

(CNN) — 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’

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.”

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Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, a one-and-a-half-year-old child in Gaza City, Gaza, faces life-threatening malnutrition as the humanitarian situation worsens due to ongoing Israeli attacks and blockade. Photograph: Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini/Anadolu via Getty Images

Staff at an international news agency have warned that its reporters in Gaza are facing imminent death from starvation and exhaustion.

The statement from AFP’s Société des Journalistes marks the first time in the agency’s 80-year history that a humanitarian alert has been issued on behalf of its own journalists.

It comes as a separate statement signed by 111 aid and human rights organisations, including Mercy Corps, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Refugees International, warn that mass starvation was spreading across the enclave even as tonnes of food, clean water, medical supplies and other items sit untouched just outside Gaza as humanitarian organisations are blocked from accessing or delivering them.

The warning from the journalist staff union comes at a time when malnutrition and starvation are killing Palestinians faster than at any point in the 21-month war, according to local health officials. A total of 33 people, including 12 children, have died in the past 48 hours from malnutrition, according to the Gaza health ministry.

AFP’s Société des Journalistes (SDJ) said that since the withdrawal of AFP staff journalists from Gaza in 2024, the agency has relied on a team of freelancers – one text reporter, three photographers and six video journalists – to report from inside the besieged territory.

“Along with a few others, they are now the only ones reporting what is happening in the Gaza Strip. The international press has been banned from entering this territory for almost two years,” the statement notes. “We refuse to see them die.”

It draws particular attention to Bashar, a 30-year-old photojournalist who has worked with AFP since 2010.

“On Saturday 19th July, he posted a message on Facebook: ‘I no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work any more.’”

AFP journalist Khader Zaanoun in Gaza City on Tuesday. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images

It said Bashar lives with his family in the ruins of their home in Gaza City, moving between camps in search of safety.

“On Sunday morning, he reported that his eldest brother had ‘fallen, because of hunger’.”

Though these journalists receive monthly payments from AFP, it said the economic collapse inside Gaza has rendered salaries “nearly useless”.

“Even if these journalists receive a monthly salary from AFP, there is nothing to buy, or else at totally exorbitant prices. The banking system has disappeared, and those who exchange money between online bank accounts and cash take a commission of almost 40 per cent.”

Transport, it says, has become nearly impossible and extremely dangerous.

“AFP can no longer use its vehicle, let alone procure petrol to fuel it and transport its journalists for their reporting. In any case, travelling by car would make them a target for the Israeli air force. AFP reporters therefore travel on foot or by donkey cart.”

Ahlam, another AFP journalist, continues to report from the south of Gaza, according to the statement.

[ ‘Famine is spreading and people are dying’: UN urges Israel to allow fuel into GazaOpens in new window ]

“And she wants to ‘bear witness’ for as long as possible. ‘Every time I leave the tent to cover an event, do an interview or document something, I don’t know if I’ll come back alive.’”

“‘The biggest problem,’ she confirms, ‘is the lack of food and water.’”

According to the SDJ, the situation for these journalists is deteriorating by the day.

“They are young and losing their strength. Most of them no longer have the physical capacity to travel around the enclave to do their job. Their heart-rending cries for help are now a daily occurrence.

“Over the last few days, we have learned from their brief messages that their lives are hanging by a thread and that the courage they have shown for months to bring news to the world will not be enough to pull them through.

“The idea that we could hear of their passing at any time is unbearable to us. On Sunday, Bashar wrote: ‘For the first time, I feel defeated.’ Later that day, he told one of us that he was grateful to him ‘for explaining what we go through every day between death and hunger’.

“Ahlam is still standing. ‘I’m trying to continue doing my job, to carry the voice of the people, to document the truth in the face of all the attempts to silence it. Here, resisting is not a choice – it’s a necessity.’”

The SDJ said the crisis was without precedent in the agency’s history.

“Since AFP was founded in August 1944, some of our journalists were killed in conflict, others were wounded or made prisoner, but there is no record of us ever having had to watch our colleagues starving to death.”

AFP management said it shared the SDJ’s concerns. “Since October 7th, Israel has blocked access to the Gaza Strip for all international journalists. In this context, the work of our Palestinian freelancers is crucial to informing the world,” it said in a statement.

“But their lives are in danger, so we urge the Israeli authorities to allow them to evacuate immediately along with their families.”

Meanwhile, in their statement, the aid agencies and human rights groups including the Norwegian Refugee Council are calling for governments to take action as hunger spreads in Gaza. They are demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire and the lifting of all restrictions on the flow of humanitarian aid.

“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. With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organisations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes,” the organisations said.

“The Government of Israel’s restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death,” their statement said. – Additional reporting: Reuters

French news agency Agence France-Presse has urged Israel to facilitate the immediate evacuation of its freelance journalists from Gaza, warning that they face an “appalling” and “untenable” situation in the war-ravaged enclave.

AFP, one of the world’s largest news services, made the appeal on Tuesday after an association of its journalists warned that their colleagues in Gaza were facing starvation.

“For months, we have watched helplessly as their living conditions deteriorated dramatically,” the Paris-based agency said in a statement.

“Their situation is now untenable, despite their exemplary courage, professional commitment, and resilience.”

While Palestinian freelancers have been “crucial” to informing the world since Israel banned foreign journalists from Gaza, AFP said, Israeli authorities should allow them and their families to immediately evacuate as their “lives are in danger”.

On Monday, the Society of Journalists, an association of AFP journalists that is independent of management, warned that their colleagues in the enclave were at risk of dying of hunger.

“We fear learning of their deaths at any moment, and it is unbearable for us,” the association said in a statement.

“Along with a few others, they are now the only ones reporting on what is happening in the Gaza Strip. International media has been banned from entering this territory for nearly two years. We refuse to watch them die.”

The association highlighted the cases of several journalists, including a 30-year-old photographer, identified as Bashar, who recently posted on social media that his “body is thin” and he had lost the strength to work.

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“Since AFP was founded in August 1944, we have lost journalists in conflicts, we have had injured and imprisoned colleagues among us, but none of us can recall ever seeing a colleague die of hunger,” the association said.

On Wednesday, the Al Jazeera Media Network released a statement calling for “immediate action” by international organisations to bring an end to a crisis that has not spared “journalists who are the bearers of truth”.

“We owe it to the courageous journalists in Gaza to amplify their voices and put an end to the unbearable suffering they are enduring due to forced starvation and targeted killings by Israeli occupation forces,” Mostefa Souag, director general of Al Jazeera Media Network, said in the statement.

UK charity Oxfam on Tuesday also warned that its staff in Gaza were among those facing starvation.

“At Oxfam, we are not just witnessing this crisis, we are living it,” Bushra Khalidi, policy lead in the occupied Palestinian territory and Gaza, told Al Jazeera.

“My colleague, she told me on Saturday that she went to work without even water, with eating a single falafel just to keep going, and she still showed up to work,” Khalidi said.

The warnings came as Gaza health officials on Tuesday reported that at least 15 Palestinians, including four children, had starved to death over the previous 24 hours, bringing the total number of malnutrition deaths since the start of Israel’s war to 101.

Israel blocked the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza in March, but has since May allowed a limited amount of supplies through the controversial Israel and United States-backed aid agency GHF.

Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians seeking food aid since the launch of the GHF, which has been boycotted by the United Nations and leading aid agencies, most of them near the group’s distribution points, according to the UN Human Rights Office.