Media Silence Helped Bring Starving Gaza Journalists To The Brink Of Death

The following article was made possible by paid subscribers of The Dissenter. Become a subscriber and support journalism on press freedom, whistleblowing, and government secrecy.

No group of reporters in the modern era have demonstrated more of a courageous commitment to journalism than those living and working under siege in Gaza. Yet throughout the Israeli government’s genocide—supported by the United States and European governments—many Western journalists have looked the other way.

Western media, particularly prestige media, have aided and abetted the mass killing of Palestinian or Arab journalists through their silence.

On July 24, Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, BBC News, and Reuters could no longer cower while the global news media circulated incredibly horrifying and sad images of Gaza children who are likely to die of starvation. 

“We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families. 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 media organizations declared in a joint statement. 

Instantly, the grim reality that the last remaining journalists in Gaza may die of starvation—along with 2.1 million Palestinians—became headline news. That is how easy it was to focus the world’s attention on the Israeli government’s brutal campaign, which includes moving the number of journalists showing the world images of death and destruction closer and closer to zero.

Former BBC News journalist Karishma Patel, who quit the BBC in 2024, responded, “For 21 months, BBC News, you have disinformed the public as to the scale, illegality and disproportionality of Israel’s actions in Gaza. Actions that amount to a genocide. BBC journalists, myself included, have been raising the alarm since 2023. This statement comes far too late.” 

Patel previously recalled that she would share interviews that she had setup in Gaza, which aired on the BBC. Supervisors told her that she needed to be careful about what she posted on social media, “and it was always in relation to Palestine.” However, the same standard did not apply to postings about Israel. 

It is misleading for any coalition of media organizations to act like famine is just now impacting journalists in Gaza. Journalists on the ground have openly shared the toll that the lack of food and water has taken on them for many, many months.

Hossam Shabat, who was killed by the Israeli military on March 24, wrote in his final message. “For [the] past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury.”

“I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents—anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side,” Shabat added. 

Israel has killed, and in numerous instances, specifically targeted or encouraged the summary execution of over 250 journalists.

On July 24, according Al Jazeera English, Israeli army spokesperson Avichai Adraee reshared a video on social media accusing Anas al-Sharif of being a member of Hamas’s military wing – a claim that has been forcefully rejected as false.” Al-Sharif is an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent.

“I am drowning in hunger, trembling in exhaustion, and resisting the fainting that follows me every moment,” Al-Sharif declared during the past week. “Gaza is dying, and we die with it. And if the world does not move today, tomorrow there may be no one waiting to be saved.”

A few Western press freedom groups have been consistent in their advocacy, support, and even partnership with Palestinian journalists. For example, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in Paris helped the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate establish a media solidarity center in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza in 2024.

“The Israeli government is deliberately using starvation as a weapon against the people of Gaza, including journalists and media workers, who are the only ones bearing witness to the atrocities amid Israel’s ban on foreign media,” IFJ stated on July 24. 

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), based in New York, reported on May 28, 2025, “After 19 months of war and Israel’s 11-week total blockade on food, water, fuel, cooking gas, medical supplies, and emergency aid into Gaza, hunger and famine threaten not just lives, but the media’s very ability to bear witness, six journalists told CPJ this month.”

CPJ’s coverage in May featured Saleh Al-Natoor, a Gaza correspondent for Al Araby TV, describing the toll that Israel’s starvation campaign has taken on his body.

“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,” Al-Natoor shared. “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.”

Though reports like this were widely available earlier in the year, especially around World Press Freedom Day on May 3, Western prestige media organizations did not raise their voices. These organizations and their staff still perceived it as too risky to show the solidarity that was needed to save their professional colleagues in Gaza. 

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has chronicled the complicity of Western media. New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger gave a speech on press freedom at the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame in May. It omitted Israel. (As FAIR’s Ari Paul noted, a version of the speech published by the Times linked to a CPJ release that explicitly mentioned Israel’s deadly attacks on journalists.) 

Six months into the genocide, FAIR compiled an analysis of the Times’ coverage of journalists killed in Gaza. “We found that the Times wrote just nine articles focused on Israel’s killing of specific journalists, and just two which examined the phenomenon as a whole.

FAIR’s Harry Zehner wrote, “Of the nine headlines which directly noted that journalists have been killed, only two headlines—in six months!—named Israel as responsible for the deaths. Both of these headlines (11/21/23, 12/7/23) presented Israel’s responsibility as an accusation, not a fact.”

“Some headlines (e.g., 11/3/23) simply said that a journalist had been killed, without naming the perpetrator. Others blamed ‘the war’ (e.g., 10/13/23)."

“Virtually no establishment U.S news organizations,” according to FAIR’s Belén Fernández, covered Shabat’s death after the Israeli army celebrated his “elimination.”

Of course, up until now, Western prestige media have studiously avoided describing Israel’s campaign with words like “ethnic cleansing.” And they dare not use the word genocide.

There has been no sustained advocacy campaign by Western prestige media against the Israeli government for shutting down Al Jazeera and expanding a ban on the Arabic news network to any international broadcaster.

Every couple of months, the world hears a group of media and press freedom organizations complain that the Israeli government is blocking them from accessing Gaza. But then that aspect of Israel’s war on the press fades from the headlines, and everything goes back to business as usual. 

As Al Jazeera Fault Lines executive producer Laila Al-Arian proclaimed, “Let it be remembered that the world leaders, lawmakers and journalists finally talking about starvation in Gaza did so when it was too late to reverse the effects of famine and malnutrition and too many have already died of hunger.”