NGOs, media demand govt intervention as Gaza starvation spreads

More than 100 organizations, including media outlets, are demanding governments do more to reach a permanent ceasefire to stem the spread of mass starvation and danger in Gaza, as aid workers and journalists join the list of the hungry amid the Israeli blockade.

In a statement signed by humanitarian organizations including Oxfam, Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders on Wednesday, the NGOs lamented that aid workers were now among those queuing up for food and risk "being shot just to feed their families".

"With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organizations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes," the statement adds.

The statement noted that "massacres at food distribution sites in Gaza are occurring near-daily", citing the role of the United States and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. As of July 13, the United Nations confirmed that 875 Palestinians had been killed while seeking food, 201 on aid routes and the rest at distribution points.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces have forcibly displaced nearly two million exhausted Palestinians, with the most recent mass displacement order issued on Sunday, confining Palestinians to less than 12 percent of Gaza.

The World Food Programme warns that current conditions make operations "untenable" and insists that the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime.

According to the statement, "Palestinians are trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires, only to wake up to worsening conditions.

"It is not just physical torment, but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage. The humanitarian system cannot run on false promises. Humanitarians cannot operate on shifting timelines or wait for political commitments that fail to deliver access."

The NGOs also demanded that governments must stop waiting for permission to act and accept that the current arrangements will not work.

"It is time to take decisive action: demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire; lift all bureaucratic and administrative restrictions; open all land crossings; ensure access to everyone in all of Gaza; reject military-controlled distribution models; restore a principled, UN-led humanitarian response and continue to fund principled and impartial humanitarian organizations," said the NGOs.

"States must pursue concrete measures to end the siege, such as halting the transfer of weapons and ammunition," they added.

They also reiterated that the UN-led system has not failed and that the humanitarian agencies "have the capacity and supplies to respond at scale".

"But, with access denied, we are blocked from reaching those in need, including our own exhausted and starved teams. On July 10, the EU (European Union) and Israel announced steps to scale up aid. But these promises of 'progress' ring hollow when there is no real change on the ground," read the NGO statement.

Piecemeal arrangements and symbolic gestures, like airdrops or flawed aid deals, serve as a smokescreen for inaction. They cannot replace states' legal and moral obligations to protect Palestinian civilians and ensure meaningful access at scale. States can and must save lives before there are none left to save, they added.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said people in Gaza were facing an "unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe" and also complained of the closure of all crossings, which has lasted for more than four months. Nebal Farsakh, the PRCS spokesperson, said in a video posted on X that more people were being admitted to hospitals with malnutrition, and that it was particularly rife among children, the pregnant and the elderly.

In a similar appeal, Al Jazeera and the journalist association of AFP - the Societe des Journalistes de l'Agence France-Presse (SDJ) - have called for the world to take decisive action to halt the forced starvation and crimes against media workers in Gaza.

"The journalistic community and the world bear an immense responsibility; it is our duty to raise our voices and mobilize all available means to support our colleagues in this noble profession," said Mostefa Souag, director general of the Al Jazeera Media Network.

"If we fail to act now, we risk a future where there may be no one left to tell our stories. Our inaction will be recorded in history as a monumental failure to protect our fellow journalists and a betrayal of the principles that every journalist strives to uphold," said Souag.

In a post on X, the SDJ said that, without immediate intervention, "the last reporters in Gaza will die".

Meanwhile, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the agency responsible for coordinating aid deliveries to Gaza, said in a post on X, "Over the past month, there has been a significant decline in the collection of humanitarian aid from the crossings by international aid organizations.

"As of now, the contents of approximately 950 humanitarian aid trucks are awaiting collection on the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings. These trucks are just waiting there.

"The collection bottleneck remains the main obstacle to maintaining a consistent flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip," it added.