News agencies including AFP, AP, BBC and Reuters issued a joint statement about Gaza journalists unable to feed themselves amid deteriorating humanitarian conditions on Thursday.

Agence France-Presse called on Israel on Tuesday to allow the immediate evacuation of its freelance contributors and their families from the Gaza Strip, citing worsening living conditions and escalating risks to their safety.

With fuel prices exorbitant and road travel treacherous in the war-battered Gaza Strip, AFP video journalist Youssef Hassouna has to walk for hours in the searing heat every day just to document the news.

As Israel continues to block food from entering Gaza, AFP journalists wrote that in the agency’s 81-year history, they have never had to watch their colleagues die of hunger.

The Society of Journalists at AFP warns that Gaza-based freelancers face absolute poverty and health deterioration, with one photographer lacking strength to work.

Over 113 in Gaza have died from famine and malnutrition amid war, siege, and collapsing humanitarian aid routes.

Malnutrition has reached alarming levels in Gaza, aid officials say, with hunger now reportedly affecting civilians as well as journalists, doctors, and other personnel on the ground.

US mediators are heading home after Hamas allegedly showed a lackluster effort to reach a cease-fire deal with Israel on Thursday, President Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said.

While Palestinian freelancers have been “crucial” to informing the world since Israel banned foreign journalists from Gaza, AFP said, Israeli authorities should allow them and their families to immediately evacuate as their “lives are in danger”.

“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.

As more than 100 human rights groups and charities demand more aid for Gaza, Bel Trew and Nedal Hamdouna report on the besieged strip’s food crisis