Gaza journalists “will die” without immediate intervention, warns the media union

The news agency Agency France-Press said that its independent journalists in Gaza suffer from constant health problems while a union warns that they will die “without immediate intervention”.

The press agency works with an independent journalist, three photographers and six independent video journalists in the Gaza Strip, because its own staff fled the territory torn by the war in 2024, according to the Society of Journalists of AFP Union.

“They spend so much time and energy trying to get food and also they feel so weak,” said Phil Chetwynd, AFP World Director, said NPR. “They speak of constant headaches, constant dizziness. So, just the capacity physically to, you know, a story is reduced.”

“Without immediate intervention, the latest journalists from Gaza will die,” said the union in his own declaration. “With a few others, they are now the only ones to point out what is happening in Gaza. The international press has been forbidden to enter this territory for almost two years.”

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An air strike strikes a building in the Al-Nasr district in Gaza City, Gaza on July 21, 2025. (Saeed Mmt Jaras / Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Since the AFP Foundation in August 1944, we have lost journalists in conflicts, we have injured and prisoners in our ranks, but none of us remembers seeing a colleague starving. We refuse to see them die,” he added in a Publish on X.

The union said that his main photographer in Gaza, which he identified as Bashar, wrote on Facebook on Saturday that “I no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work”.

“Bashar, 30, works and lives under the same conditions as all the Gazans, going from a refugee camp to another in the midst of Israeli bombings. For more than a year, he has lived in absolute poverty and has taken huge risks to do his job.

“Since February, Bashar has lived in the ruins of his house in Gaza City with his mother, four brothers and sisters, and the family of one of his brothers. Their house is completely without amenities or comfort, shared with a few cousins. Sunday morning, he reported that one of his brothers had fallen, because of hunger ”, added.

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The Palestinians pushed to receive a hot meal in a charity in the Mawasi region of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip in the South on July 22, 2025. (AFP via Getty Images)

The union said that each of its independent journalists from Gaza received an AFP monthly salary, however, “there is almost nothing to buy – or what is available is prohibitive”.

AP and Reuters representatives also expressed their concern for their teams there, but would not say how many people work for them.

“We are deeply concerned about our staff in Gaza and do everything in our power to support them,” said Lauren Easton, spokesperson for the Associated Press. “We are very proud of the work that our team continues to do in disastrous circumstances to hold the informed world of what is happening on the field.”

Reuters said that he was in daily contact with his independent journalists, and that “the extreme difficulty in obtaining food leads to their residents and all residents of Gaza who experience higher hunger and illness levels”.

A demonstrator holds a sign of reading in Arabic “a hungry journalist writes a report on hungry” during a demonstration of journalists against hunger in the Rimal district of Gaza City on July 19, 2025. (Omar al-Qattaa / AFP via Getty Images)

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The agency said it provided additional money to help them.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.