In Gaza, the camera is no longer just a tool for documentation; it has become a heavy burden on frail shoulders resisting collapse under the weight of starvation, now one of the starkest faces of the genocidal war Israel has waged on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023. Amid these hardships, Palestinian women journalists cover massacres while their eyes search for a scrap of bread, and male journalists clutch cameras with one hand while tightening their belts over empty stomachs with the other. Here, the journalist is not fighting to access information, but simply to stay alive until the day ends.
While journalists are expected to stay present and document the crimes of the occupation, Gaza’s humanitarian reality is crumbling at a terrifying pace. According to World Health Organisation reports, nearly 95% of Gaza’s population suffers from food insecurity, and more than 50% of children are malnourished to varying degrees. Nutrition centres are on the brink of collapse, hospitals are unable to provide food, and saline solution has become a common substitute, though it doesn’t satisfy hunger. At best, it merely keeps people alive.
Two days ago, journalist Beda’a Ma’mar broke down crying on camera during a live report. It wasn’t fear of another airstrike that made her weep, but helplessness, hunger, exhaustion, and despair. She was covering massacres while wondering how she would return home to her children with no dinner. Tears streamed down her face before a wide audience as she said loudly and without shame: “Yes… I am speaking to you now while I am hungry.”
Two days ago, journalist Beda’a Ma’mar broke down crying on camera during a live report. It wasn’t fear of another airstrike that made her weep, but helplessness, hunger, exhaustion, and despair. She was covering massacres while wondering how she would return home to her children with no dinner. Tears streamed down her face before a wide audience as she said loudly and without shame: “Yes… I am speaking to you now while I am hungry.”
In times of war, the journalist is expected to stand at the frontlines, brave, steady, and ready to deliver the image. But what about the backstage reality in Gaza today? What about those who switch off the microphone only to collapse in tears from sheer hunger? What about those drinking water and salt with weakened bodies just to make it through to the next broadcast? This time, famine hasn’t just entered the homes of the poor; it has seeped into the live broadcast tents themselves. It is strangling the very correspondent who reports on the siege, while being its victim at the same time.
Photographer Omar Al-Tabsh writes bitterly on his Facebook page: “I would get sudden dizzy spells while filming. My body would give out, and I’d have to sit before resuming my work. I avoided facing the truth, hiding my pain behind excuses of work pressure. But the truth is, I was fighting hunger.” He adds painfully: “Today, we are not covering famine. We are living it.”
Journalist Sally Thabet also collapsed during coverage in the media tent in central Gaza City. She was taken to the hospital, where the diagnosis was harsh: dehydration, malnutrition, and exhaustion. She pulled out her IV cannula and returned to reporting with a pale face and indescribable heartbreak.
"Even when we try to withdraw our salaries, they deduct commissions of up to 45%," she said in anguish in a video. Sally tries to cook “mock soup” for her daughters with a bit of bouillon powder, a pinch of salt, and garlic powder. A kilo of flour now costs 100 shekels (around $30) and barely makes ten loaves of bread.
In Gaza, journalists are also practising primitive survival rituals. They have been mixing saline solution to prevent their intestines from rotting at coverage points inside Al-Shifa, Al-Ma’madani, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospitals. They documented it in videos they shared themselves, not to evoke pity, but as a cry for help.
The suffering continues for journalists struggling to stay in the field despite Israel’s starvation policy that has drained them. Many have begun voicing their anguish publicly on social media. Journalist Shorouq Shaheen, who lost more than 10 kilograms, wrote: “My strength is fading as if my body is melting from sheer exhaustion. I have no energy left; I’ve been depleted for so long: no food to ease the hunger, no water to wet my throat, nothing to keep me going.”
In Gaza, journalists are also practising primitive survival rituals. They have been mixing saline solution to prevent their intestines from rotting at coverage points inside Al-Shifa, Al-Ma’madani, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospitals. They documented it in videos they shared themselves, not to evoke pity, but as a cry for help.
In words heavy with despair, Shorouq added: “I used to walk halfway to work despite the fatigue and hunger. Now, I can’t even manage the first step. I find myself having to sit down repeatedly on the way. I try to catch my breath, but the exhaustion is stronger than me. I am breaking down.”
She stressed that this is not just her reality; many people and fellow journalists are collapsing silently, walking the streets with pale faces and frail bodies. Some faint in the field or in the middle of live coverage.
In another heartbreaking scene, veteran journalist Basheer Abu Al-Sha’ar, who carried his camera for decades, decided to sell it for a sack of flour. This was no dramatic act but a painful decision made with a shattered heart. In a choked voice, he asked, “What use is the camera if my family is starving to death?”
He posted his plea on Facebook, seeking a buyer to feed his children, adding, “A bite of bread has become more urgent than the news.” Selling the camera wasn’t just giving up a professional tool; as he described it, it was surrendering a piece of himself: “It felt like burying a third eye I’d lived with for years. But it won’t feed my children.”
The tragedy is no longer hidden; journalists are collapsing one after another. They report on hunger while living it, cover massacres while enduring famine. One writes a story about bread running out when he himself hasn’t eaten in two days. Another covers a massacre in one neighbourhood before begging for a sack of flour on his personal page.
Amid this agony, journalist Doaa Rouqa wrote on X: “After 656 days of continuous genocide coverage: I am exhausted. We’ve reached a very harsh stage in the grim reality inside Gaza. The famine has intensified while we work in extremely harsh conditions, sacrificing our frail bodies and drained health.”
The tragedy is no longer hidden; journalists are collapsing one after another. They report on hunger while living it, cover massacres while enduring famine. One writes a story about bread running out when he himself hasn’t eaten in two days. Another covers a massacre in one neighbourhood before begging for a sack of flour on his personal page.
Journalism in Gaza is no longer a profession; that is the harsh truth. It has become a perilous crossing between death and survival. The catastrophe is that the world watches in silence, not because the voices aren’t clear, but because human life, Palestinian life specifically, even if it belongs to a journalist, is deemed by some nations to be worth less than a loaf of bread.
The Journalists Syndicate reports receiving dozens of complaints from colleagues. Deputy head Dr Tahseen Al-Astal noted attempts to pressure many international bodies, including the International Federation of Journalists, but admitted, “The scale of suffering exceeds all capacities, and logistical barriers obstruct everything.”
To carry a camera in Gaza today doesn’t just make you a journalist; it makes you a different kind of fighter. You battle on two fronts: image and bread, in two arenas: truth and famine. Though the pulse of journalism hasn’t stopped in Gaza, the bodies of its guardians are becoming fragile, crumbling bit by bit under the weight of hunger and deprivation.
We are witnessing a historic moment where those telling the story can no longer endure. The journalist in Gaza has become like the victim they film, waiting for bread, calling out to a deaf world with an empty stomach and a voice broken by hunger. But who is listening?
