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Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) holds a press conference in Berlin, Germany on October 16, 2024 [Halil Sağırkaya – Anadolu Agency]
The head of the UN agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) on Tuesday slammed the Israeli government’s policy of denying the famine in Gaza as “shameful”, Anadolu reports.
Speaking to the press at a seminar held in Santander, northern Spain, Philippe Lazzarini said: “There is a famine right now in Gaza. This is a man-made famine driven by political and military will.”
Lazzarini said Gaza is facing a situation that has “hit rock bottom” in humanitarian terms, adding that the failure of the international community to heed warnings about the famine is “shameful.”
“Gaza today is like hell. People are not only dying under bombardments, they are dying of hunger, and even when they go out to look for food, they are killed. Those who could reverse the situation in Gaza are doing nothing — no measures, no condemnation.
“Today we are witnessing complete impunity for Israel. There is no economic, political, or diplomatic cost for those committing these violations,” he said.
Calling for an immediate ceasefire and unrestricted access for humanitarian aid in Gaza, Lazzarini noted that aid equivalent to 6,000 UNRWA trucks, enough to cover the food needs of the Palestinian population for two months, is being held outside the Gaza Strip.
“The Israeli government’s policy of denying the famine in Gaza is shameful,” he said.
He also recalled that the number of humanitarian workers killed in Gaza is very high, with more than 360 UNRWA staff members having lost their lives.
Lazzarini strongly condemned the Israeli army’s airstrike on the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, which left journalists civilians dead.
He also called for support for Palestinian journalists, stressing that they remain the only witnesses to what is happening in Gaza, as Israel refuses to allow international reporters into the enclave to verify the situation on the ground.
Palestinian and Israeli activists take part in a protest against the killing of journalists in the Gaza Strip as they gather in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, August 15, 2025
With foreign media banned from Gaza, Palestinians themselves have reversed most of zionism’s century-long propaganda gains in just two years — this is why Israel has killed 270 journalists since October 2023, explains RAMZY BAROUD
THE killing of seven Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza on August 10 has prompted verbal condemnations, yet has inspired little to no substantive action. This has become the predictable and horrifying trajectory of the international community’s response to the ongoing Israeli genocide.
By eliminating Palestinian journalists like Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqeh, Israel has made a sinister statement that the genocide will spare no-one. According to the monitoring website Shireen.ps, Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists since October 2023.
More journalists are likely to die covering the genocide of their own people in Gaza, especially since Israel has manufactured a convenient and easily deployed narrative that every Gazan journalist is simply a “terrorist.”
This is the same cruel logic offered by numerous Israeli officials in the past, including Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who declared that “an entire nation” in Gaza “is responsible” for not having rebelled against Hamas, effectively stating that there are no innocent people in Gaza.
This Israeli discourse, which dehumanises entire populations based on a vicious logic, is frequently repeated by officials who fear no accountability. Even Israeli diplomats, whose job in theory is to improve their country’s image internationally, frequently engage in this brutal ritual. In comments made in January 2024, Israeli ambassador to Britain, Tzipi Hotovely, callously argued that “every school, every mosque, every second house has access to tunnels,” implying that all of Gaza is a valid military target.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAVote Labour for Genocide.
Palestinian journalists protest against the Israeli attacks on the media workers across the Gaza Strip outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah on January 8, 2025. (Photo: Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“We have been let down by the international community, particularly the international media organizations,” said Abubaker Abed, sharing a message from Palestinian journalists.
Palestinian journalists gathered outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah this week to call attention to Israeli forces’ genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, their slaughter of those reporting on the ground, and the global community’s failure to hold Israel accountable for the bloodshed.
On Thursday, the day after the event, Abubaker Abed, a Palestinian sports journalist now covering Israel’s war on Gaza, shared on social media a short video of his remarks in English, which he said were delivered on behalf of all the reporters in blue vests who surrounded him and the podium.
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Palestinian reporters across Gaza have covered what Abed called “the most well-documented and first livestreamed genocide in history,” as Israel—armed by the United States—has launched airstrikes and ground raids, and stopped humanitarian aid and international media from entering the coastal enclave.
Abed said that “we’ve been reporting tirelessly, extensively, and thoroughly on this genocide. It’s indeed a genocide against us, which we’ve been documenting in makeshift tented camps and workplaces… You’ve seen us shedding tears over our loved ones, colleagues, friends, and family members. You’ve seen us killed in every possible way. We’ve been immolated, incinerated, dismembered, and disemboweled—and recently, we’ve been freezing to death.”
“What more ways should you be seeing us killed, then, so that you can move and act and stop the hell inflicted upon us? There are no words to describe what we’ve been going through, because you’ve seen our bodies, how they’ve become fragile, skinny, and fatigued, but we never stopped,” he continued, highlighting how Palestinian journalists have worked “to help the population that has seen every sort of torture and tasted every type of death,” while the world has refused to “stop Israel’s impunity against us.”
“Our message is very clear: We are journalists, and we are Palestinian journalists. We have been let down by the international community, particularly the international media organizations,” Abed declared. “We haven’t seen any sort of support—a single word of support. Even the press vests we’re wearing right now mark us as a target. They do not protect us at all, because we are Palestinians. Maybe if we were Ukrainians or of any other citizenship, with blond hair and blue eyes, the world would rage and rant for us. But because we are Palestinians, we have only one right, which is to die and be maimed.”
“We are just documenting a genocide against us,” he concluded. “After almost a year and a half, we want you to stand foot-by-foot with us, because we are like any other journalists, reporters, and media workers all across the globe—no matter the origin, the color, or the race. Journalism is not a crime. We are not a target.”
Some journalists around the world reposted Abed’s video and called out their colleagues for ignoring Israel’s decimation of Gaza or reporting on it in ways favorable to the far-right Israeli government and its supporters, including the United States.
“The past 15+ months have been one of the most shameful periods in the history of Western journalism,” said Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News, which has published Abed’s reporting from Gaza. “The refusal of so many journalists to speak out in defense of our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza as they and their families have been hunted down and killed is a bloody stain.”
The New Yorker editor Erin Overbey similarly said that “the staggering silence of Western journalists this past year as their Palestinian colleagues have been targeted, intimidated, and killed by Israeli forces during the genocide in Gaza will go down as one of the most shameful periods in media/journalism and human rights history.”
British writer Owen Jones said: “How to describe the refusal of Western journalists to speak out about the biggest slaughter of journalists in the history of human civilization? Damning. Racist. Nauseating. You will never be forgiven. History will damn those who stayed silent—every last fucking one.”
Hamza Yusuf, a London-based British Palestinian writer, said that “we will never forget that whilst Palestinian journalists in Gaza were being systematically slaughtered by Israel, their industry peers at best looked on with indifference and at worst used their positions and their coverage to whitewash Israel’s crimes. Blood on their hands.”
As of Thursday, health officials in Gaza put the death toll from Israel’s 15-month assault at 46,006, with at least 109,378 other Palestinians wounded, the vast majority of the enclave’s population displaced, and civilian infrastructure in ruins. Israel faces global accusations of genocide, including in a case at the International Court of Justice.
Figures for press deaths have varied. The International Federation of Journalists—which works with its affiliate, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, to verify information—has documented the killings of 148 Palestinian media workers while the Committee to Protect Journalists has a list of 152 confirmed fatalities, at least 13 of which the group classifies as murders by Israeli forces.
At the end of last year, Al Jazeera published a long-form article titled “Know Their Names” and reported that “from October 7, 2023, to December 25, 2024, at least 217 journalists and media workers had been killed in Gaza. Five more were killed on December 26 when an Israeli airstrike targeted a news van near al-Awda Hospital.”
“Eighty percent of the journalists and media workers killed were between the ages of 20 and 40, a stark statistic that captures the young age of those who risk their lives to document the conflict,” according to Al Jazeera. “They were reporters and writers, photographers and video directors, analysts and editors, sound engineers and voiceover artists, and even founders of media outlets. Their stories remind us of the heavy price paid by those who strive to document humanity’s darkest moments.”
Saed Abu Nabhan, a freelance Anadolu cameraman in Gaza, was killed by an Israeli army long-range rifle attack on Friday, Anadolu Agency reports.
The Israeli military first surrounded an area in the Al-Jadeed Refugee Camp, located in the central Gaza Strip’s Nuseirat region, where many journalists were present, before targeting those in the area.
Footage from the scene shows a wounded individual being rushed out of a house on a stretcher with the help of aid workers.
Nearby, Abu Nabhan is seen trying to run while covering the incident with his equipment. At that moment, he is targeted by what appears to be a shot fired from a long-range rifle.
Abu Nabhan then falls to the ground and lies motionless. People nearby struggle fearfully to approach him due to the threat of being targeted by Israeli bullets.
Official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reported on the attack, confirming that Abu Nabhan was killed.
Separately, at least one person was reported dead, with the deceased and injured taken to Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, following an Israeli air strike on a house in Gaza’s Shuja’iyya neighbourhood.
The death of Abu Nabhan brought the total number of Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since 7 October, 2023 to 203. Reports also indicate that 399 journalists have been injured, and 43 others captured.
The Israeli army has continued a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed more than 46,000 people, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack on 7 October, 2023, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.
5 journalists were killed in an Israeli air strike on their vehicle near Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, on December 26, 2024. Photo: Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor.
Instead of condemning the massacre of the Palestinian journalists, western media outlets have attempted to whitewash Israel’s flagrant crime by adopting its narrative.
Five Palestinian journalists from Al-Quds Today TV channel were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit their broadcasting van as they were covering events near Al-Awda Hospital, in Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza strip on Thursday, December 26.
The slain journalists were identified as Faisal Abu al-Qumsan, Ayman al-Jadi, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Ali, Mohammad al-Ladah, and Fadi Hassouna.
Just hours before their van, which was marked with the word “Press” in large red letters, was hit, Ayman al-Jadi recorded a video with his slain colleagues. The video showed Ayman celebrating with them as he was awaiting the birth of his first child, who was born around the same time as he was killed in the airstrike.
Press van that was hit with an Israeli airstrike. Photo: Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor
Ayman’s brother Omar al-Jadi recorded and later shared a video of the moment Ayman and his colleagues were killed. In the video, a grief-stricken Omar sobs as the van carrying his brother is set ablaze.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) condemned the Israeli massacre of the five journalists on Thursday, pointing out that the deadly attack took the death toll of Palestinian journalists and media workers killed by Israel since the beginning of the Israeli genocidal aggression in Gaza to more than 190.
PJS called the murder of the journalists “an attempt to obscure the truth and stifle freedom of expression,” adding that it reflects the extent of the systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists. The syndicate also urged the international community and all human rights organizations to provide urgent protection for Palestinian journalists and take practical steps to stop the crimes committed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) against them.
For its part, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) denounced the crime on Thursday. CPJ’s program director in New York, Carlos Martinez de la Serna, clarified in a statement that with the assassination of Al-Quds Today journalists “nine Gazan journalists have been killed in less than two weeks”, urging the international community to act immediately “to protect Palestinian journalists in Gaza and end Israel’s impunity for these killings.”
On December 11, Palestinian broadcaster of local Al-Aqsa RadioEman al-Shanti was killed alongside her three children and husband in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a residential building in Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, in Gaza City. Four days later, Al-Mashhad News correspondent Mohammad Baalousha was killed after an Israeli quadcopter dropped a bomb on a street within the same neighborhood.
On the same day, Palestinian journalist and editor at a local news agency, Mohammad al-Qrinawi, his wife and children were killed in an Israeli aerial attack that struck their home in Al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
One day after Baalousha and al-Qrinawi were murdered, Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmad Baker al-Louh was killed in an Israeli airstrike, which targeted a Palestinian Civil Defense post in Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
While the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have been systematically targeting Palestinian journalists and media workers in a bid to cover Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, it has also blocked foreign media outlets from entering the besieged enclave.
According to a report published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) last October, Israel has implemented diverse methods to orchestrate a media blackout in Gaza. In addition to the targeted killing of journalists, and prohibiting foreign journalists from accessing Gaza, IOF sought to destroy newsrooms and cut off internet and electricity, annihilating the Palestinian media infrastructure.
Meanwhile, western media has continued to whitewash Israel’s war crimes and the slaughtering of journalists by adopting the IOF’s narrative. Echoing Israeli media, The New York Times reported on Thursday, that the five murdered journalists from Al-Quds Today were associated with a militant group.
Palestinian and Israeli activists take part in a protest against the killing of journalists in the Gaza Strip as they gather in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, August 15, 2025
