Starvation, dizziness, brain fog, and sickness all directly affect the daily reports produced by Gaza’s dismantled, exhausted press corps, most of whom are already living and working in tents, amid indiscriminate bombing, and often without electricity or internet access.

While what U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterrez described as a “teaspoon of aid” has trickled in to southern and central Gaza since May 19, the strip’s entire population of 2.1 million people remain acutely food insecure, with the prospect of famine looming amid an intense military offensive.

“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.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Doja Daoud.

CPJ is still investigating whether Sayyidna was reporting and other circumstances around his death.

“We are deeply saddened by the killing of journalist Ahmed Mohamed Saleh Sayyidna, a respected media figure who served his community for decades,” said Sara Qudah, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Program Director. “Authorities and all parties to the conflict must immediately launch an investigation into the circumstances of Sayyidna’s death and take concrete steps to ensure the protection of journalists, especially those reporting from the frontlines of this war.”

Sayyidna, director of the radio sector at the state broadcasting network of North Dafur, previously worked at the state radio station El-Fasher as a producer, director, and administrator, and founded the popular drama series Rakoubat Abba Saleh, which aired on United Nations-funded UNAMID Radio, the anonymous journalist told CPJ. Sayyidna was also known for his decades-long contribution to cultural and theater life in El-Fasher since the 1990s.

Since the war between the SAF and RSF began in April 2023, CPJ has documented the killings of at least eight other journalists in Sudan. Six were confirmed to have been targeted in connection with their work; CPJ is still investigating the motive behind the other two killings.

CPJ’s email to the RSF for comment on Sayyidna’s death did not receive a response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

A feature film about life in the occupied West Bank, The Teacher, opens in New York tonight and in theaters across the U.S. next week. The film, which is inspired by true events, centers a Palestinian schoolteacher who struggles to reconcile his commitment to political resistance with supporting his student. “It’s a fiction narrative, this film, but it is deeply, deeply rooted in reality,” says Farah Nabulsi, director of The Teacher, which is partially based on the 2011 prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel, in which one Israeli soldier was exchanged for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Nabulsi and Saleh Bakri, the acclaimed Palestinian actor who stars in The Teacher, speak to Democracy Now! about the resonance of the film in the midst of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “The occupation wants us separated,” Bakri says. “I want to dismantle these checkpoints … I dream of Palestinians coming together again.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“We needed to turn this page. … We’ve been under this inhuman condition for 54 years.” Following a lightning 12-day offensive, armed opposition groups have overthrown President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and his family’s five-decade rule in Syria. Assad has fled to Russia, where he has been granted asylum, while tens of thousands of political prisoners have been freed. The uprising was led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, a Turkish-backed group listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations. The release of prisoners from conditions of “hunger, humiliation, extreme despair” is a welcome and hopeful sign for the new balance of power in Syria, says the writer, dissident and political prisoner in Syria from 1980 to 1996, Yassin al-Haj Saleh, but it remains to be seen if others who were disappeared during the Syrian civil war, including al-Haj Saleh’s wife Samira, will be recovered or their fates identified.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

On Saturday, October 28, at least 27 journalists covering rallies in the capital of Dhaka were attacked by supporters of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the ruling Awami League party, as well as police, according to a statement by local press freedom group Bangladeshi Journalists in International Media, several journalists who spoke to CPJ, and various news reports.

BNP demonstrators demanded that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League step down and allow a nonpartisan caretaker government to oversee the upcoming election scheduled for January. Police fired tear gas, sound grenades, and rubber bullets to disperse BNP protesters, who threw stones and bricks in response.

“The attacks on at least 27 Bangladeshi journalists covering recent political rallies in Dhaka must see swift and transparent accountability,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna. “The leadership and supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League, as well as police, must respect the rights of journalists to freely and safely report on the lead-up to the upcoming election scheduled for January.”

Md Rafsan Jani, a crime reporter for The Daily Kalbela newspaper, told CPJ that he was filming BNP supporters allegedly assaulting police officers when two demonstrators approached him and took his phone and identification card. A group of BNP supporters then surrounded Jani and beat him with iron rods, sticks, and pipes as he repeatedly identified himself as a journalist, he said, adding that he managed to escape after around 20 minutes. As of November 1, his items had not been returned.

S A Masum, a photographer for The Daily Inqilab newspaper, told CPJ that he was taking photos of a confrontation between Awami League and BNP supporters when his head was repeatedly struck from behind with what he suspected to be a bamboo stick, knocking him unconscious while the attackers, whom he did not identify, continued to beat him. Bystanders at the scene rescued Masum and took him to the hospital, where he was treated for a concussion and severe bruising and open lesions throughout his body, according to the journalist, who shared photos of his injuries with CPJ.

Md Sirajum Salekin, a crime reporter for the Dhaka Times newspaper, told CPJ that he was on his motorcycle on the way to cover clashes at the chief justice’s residence when a vehicle hit his motorcycle from behind, causing him to fall and break two bones in his right leg. Salekin said he believed he was targeted because he was wearing his press badge and his motorcycle was marked with a sticker of the Dhaka Times, which has critically reported on the Awami League.

Awami League demonstrators beat The Daily Kalbela reporter Abu Saleh Musa while covering their rally, according to The Daily Star.

Mohammad Ali Mazed, a video reporter for the French news agency Agence France-Presse, told CPJ that he was covering a clash between police and BNP demonstrators while holding a camera and press identification when five to six demonstrators surrounded him. The demonstrators damaged Mazed’s camera and other news equipment and beat him on his head, back, and right shoulder with bamboo sticks for around three minutes until the journalist fled the scene with the assistance of bystanders, he said.

Sazzad Hossain, a freelance photographer working with the news website Bangla Tribune and international outlets, including the British newspaper The Guardian and photo agency SOPA Images, told CPJ that BNP protesters threw broken bricks at him and trampled him while he was covering a clash with police.

Salahuddin Ahmed Shamim, a freelance photographer reporting for the news agency Fair News Service, told CPJ that he was covering BNP protesters allegedly assaulting police officers when seven to eight of the party’s supporters surrounded him, beat his backside with bamboo sticks, and kicked him for around 15 minutes.

Two journalists who spoke to CPJ– Sheikh Hasan Ali, chief photojournalist for Kaler Kantho newspaper, and Ahammad Foyez, senior correspondent for New Age newspaper– said they were struck with rubber bullets when police attempted to disperse BNP protesters, leaving them with minor injuries.

Ali told CPJ that an unidentified man hit the Kaler Kantho photographer Lutfor Rahman with a bamboo stick on his right shoulder while covering the same clashes.

Md Hanif Rahman, a photographer for the Ekushey TV broadcaster, told CPJ that he and Ekushey TV reporter Touhidur Rahman were covering an arson attack on a police checkpoint when they were surrounded by a group of 10 to 12 men who beat Md Hanif Rahman with pipes and sticks and pushed Touhidur Rahman.

Rabiul Islam Rubel, a reporter for The Daily Kalbela, told CPJ that he was among a crowd of BNP supporters while covering the clashes at the chief justice’s residence when 15 to 20 men threw bricks at him while shouting that journalists are “government brokers.”

Jony Rayhan, a reporter for The Daily Kalbela, told CPJ that BNP supporters beat him while covering their rally. Rayhan was also injured by a sound grenade that landed in front of him while police were dispersing the demonstrators, he said.

Salman Tareque Sakil, chief reporter for Bangla Tribune, told CPJ that he sustained a leg fracture after a brick was thrown at him while covering the BNP rally.

Jubair Ahmed, a Bangla Tribune reporter, told CPJ that while police were dispersing BNP demonstrators, a tear gas shell landed in front of him, blurring his vision before the protesters trampled him while fleeing the scene.

Tahir Zaman, a reporter for the news website The Report, was also injured by a rubber bullet while covering clashes at the BNP rally, according to his outlet and BJIM.

BJIM and local media named an additional 10 journalists who were attacked, but did not provide details on the incidents, which CPJ continues to investigate. Those journalists are:

• Touhidul Islam Tareque, reporter for The Daily Kalbela
• Kazi Ihsan bin Didar, crime reporter for the Breaking News website
• Tanvir Ahmed, reporter for The Daily Ittefaq newspaper
• Sheikh Nasir, reporter for The Daily Ittefaq
• Arifur Rahman Rabbi, reporter for the Desh Rupantor newspaper
• Masud Parvez Anis, reporter for the Bhorer Kagoj newspaper
• Saiful Rudra, special correspondent for the broadcaster Green TV
• Arju, camera operator for Green TV, who was identified by one name
• Hamidur Rahman, reporter for the Share Biz newspaper
• Maruf, a freelance journalist identified by one name

CPJ is investigating a report of a separate attack on at least one journalist on Saturday.

CPJ contacted BNP spokesperson Zahir Uddin Swapan, Information Minister and Awami League Joint Secretary Hasan Mahmud, and Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Habibur Rahman for comment, but did not immediately receive any replies.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On Thursday, August 10, officials from the General Directorate of Intelligence, the Taliban’s intelligence agency, stormed the office of the independent Killid radio station in Jalalabad city, in eastern Nangarhar province, and detained its manager Faqirzai and reporter Saleh, according to the non-profit Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC)and a journalist with knowledge of the situation who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation by the Taliban.

Separately, also on Thursday, Taliban intelligence operatives entered offices of the independent Uranus TV network in Kunduz city in northern Afghanistan and detained Hasib Hassas, a journalist at the independent radio Salam Watandar, according to the AFJC and another journalist who spoke with CPJ anonymously due to fear of Taliban reprisal.

CPJ’s journalist sources said that Faqirzai, Saleh, and Hassas were detained on accusations that they reported for exiled media. 

“The detention of journalists Faqir Mohammad Faqirzai, Jan Agha Saleh, and Hasib Hassas just before the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul shows the Taliban is determined to continue their brutal crackdown on the media,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Taliban authorities must immediately and unconditionally release the three journalists and stop muzzling reporting, whether it is conducted for local media or the exiled press.”

The journalist sources said that the three were transferred to an undisclosed location; CPJ was unable to determine their whereabouts. 

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to a CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, the country’s media have been in crisis, with journalists facing arrests, raids on offices, and beatings. The Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence has emerged as a key threat to journalists in the country. Some journalists who fled the country have established media outlets to continue reporting on Afghanistan in exile. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On Thursday, August 10, officials from the General Directorate of Intelligence, the Taliban’s intelligence agency, stormed the office of the independent Killid radio station in Jalalabad city, in eastern Nangarhar province, and detained its manager Faqirzai and reporter Saleh, according to the non-profit Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC)and a journalist with knowledge of the situation who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation by the Taliban.

Separately, also on Thursday, Taliban intelligence operatives entered offices of the independent Uranus TV network in Kunduz city in northern Afghanistan and detained Hasib Hassas, a journalist at the independent radio Salam Watandar, according to the AFJC and another journalist who spoke with CPJ anonymously due to fear of Taliban reprisal.

CPJ’s journalist sources said that Faqirzai, Saleh, and Hassas were detained on accusations that they reported for exiled media. 

“The detention of journalists Faqir Mohammad Faqirzai, Jan Agha Saleh, and Hasib Hassas just before the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul shows the Taliban is determined to continue their brutal crackdown on the media,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Taliban authorities must immediately and unconditionally release the three journalists and stop muzzling reporting, whether it is conducted for local media or the exiled press.”

The journalist sources said that the three were transferred to an undisclosed location; CPJ was unable to determine their whereabouts. 

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to a CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, the country’s media have been in crisis, with journalists facing arrests, raids on offices, and beatings. The Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence has emerged as a key threat to journalists in the country. Some journalists who fled the country have established media outlets to continue reporting on Afghanistan in exile. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

As the death toll tops 17,000 in Turkey and Syria from Monday’s twin earthquakes, we look at the situation in Syria, where 12 years of brutal war have left the country’s institutions in tatters, further complicating aid efforts. Syrian writer, dissident and former political prisoner Yassin al-Haj Saleh describes how the war has killed about 2% of Syrians and displaced 7 million more, or about a third of the population. He is author of the book “The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

On April 20, the Chadian gendarmerie, a military police force, arrested Memnguidé, a correspondent for the privately owned radio station Oxygène, as he covered unrest in the southwestern town of Donia in the Logone Occidental region, according to the journalist and Abbas Mahamoud, the chairman of the Union of Journalists of Chad (UJT). They both spoke to CPJ by phone and email.

Memnguidé and Mahamoud said the gendarmerie seized the journalist’s cell phone and took him to their office in the nearby Moundou city, where he was accused of rebellion, held for five days, and then released after the local prosecutor intervened. The gendarmerie informed Memnguidé on his release that he should be ready because they might still prosecute him, he told CPJ, adding that as of May 12, his cell phone had yet to be returned.

“Chadian authorities should cease their harassment of Radio Oxygène journalist Olivier Memnguidé and ensure he can work freely and without fear of another arbitrary arrest or prosecution,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in New York. “Covering unrest is dangerous enough for journalists without worrying about an arrest on spurious anti-state allegations.”

Memnguidé was arrested at the same time as several young adults from Donia “who were rioting in response to the detention of another youth who had been charged for allegedly stealing a motorcycle,” Mahamoud told CPJ.

“I went to the field to get a feel for the situation and to scout around. When I was about to meet [and interview] the authorities, the brigade commander who was following me, stopped me and took me to Moundou, the provincial capital,” Memnguidé told the CPJ. The journalist said he did not behave in any way that would justify him being accused of rebellion.

Five days later, on April 25, Memnguidé was presented to the prosecutor’s office in Moundou, where the deputy prosecutor ordered his release over because the court there did not have jurisdiction to proceed with the case, the journalist told CPJ. Since then, Memnguidé has not returned to his home in Goré, another nearby town, because he is fearful that he will be rearrested.

CPJ called Ahmed Saleh, a commandant with the local gendarmerie, but the line disconnected after CPJ told him the call was about Memnguidé’s arrest.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.