At the southern end of the Gaza border with Israel, we enter the war area.
The dusty roads cross the arid desert near the Egyptian border. The Israeli -appearance Israeli soldiers guard the checkpoint. Israeli military therapists tell us not to take their photos.
Our HUMVEES convoy is overflowing with cameras, where dozens of journalists from all over the world are transported – all of whom wears jackets and helmets of lead -resistant – on a parking lot about 200 meters away.
After two years of war, this is still the only way abroad, as journalists inside Gaza are allowed by Israel by the army: accompanying, or “guaranteed” for a few hours. CBC News and other media organizations have submitted countless requests to reach more than others, and none of them were approved.
On this day, though, after weeks of criticism by international agencies, NGOs and foreign governments, Israel wants to obtain a message, to explain the reason for not reaching the hungry Palestinians in Gaza.
“If anyone asks why this happens, I can tell you that this is waiting for the United Nations,” said a spokesman for the Kojat, an unnamed aid aid agency, said.
He says this is not the mistake of Israel. It allows approximately 300 truck loads of aid a day. But then, the platforms sit for weeks.
“All of this, this is just waiting for them,” he said.
In fact, there are bags of rice and corn, as well as fish boxes, stacked in the parking lot. Funds called UNICEF, the Red Cross and the World Food Program sitting under the hot sun.
The classification of integrated food security, which monitors hunger levels, warned of the crisis in parts of Gaza has reached the highest level. Israel rejected the report.
The United Nations says that it is due to the countless bureaucratic requirements that Israel imposes on import, and its unwillingness to provide adequate security along the roads it carries out in Gaza.
“It is not because we are sitting around drinking tea and waiting for someone to tell us that we are not doing our work,” said Olga Cherevco, with the UN Distribution Agency Oshha. “This is because we are facing huge obstacles, obstructing, and reaching is our biggest challenge.”
A few independent witnesses
Access is also the biggest challenge for the media.
Israel says Gaza is very dangerous, provided that external journalists are allowed to enter independently, and security risks to its war effort. The Foreign Press Association submitted a petition in the Israeli Supreme Court to enter, only to see that the judges agreed that Gaza had proposed “tangible security concerns.” A second session was postponed for a year.
Usually, it is journalists and media organizations who decide whether the risks of the conflict zone deserve to be taken in places such as Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq. Israel has routinely allowed journalists in Gaza during the previous wars.
This time, he left the world with a few independent witnesses – and many questions.
Is there really Hunger In Gaza, like United Nations experts and NGOs? Israel denies that there is a famine, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for claims, contrary to a “Blood defamation.”
How Know If 66,000 people die since October 7, 2023, health officials in Gaza claim? Israel rejects any numbers coming from these officials, such as Hamas’s unreliable propaganda.
The lack of foreign correspondents in Gaza has some Palestinians asking whether the world has lost attention.
“We forget, no one sees us,” Abdullah Al -Koumi said in the center of Gaza.
Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler does not think that. She is an expert in media policy at the Israel Institute for Democracy, which says Israel’s strategy has led to adverse results.
“When it does not allow media or transparency inside, light will appear through other cracks. These cracks may be biased or may cause greater harm,” she said.
247 dead journalists: United Nations
Local journalists have become eyes and ears for most major media organizations, including CBC News.
“I have seen people burning. People die in front of my eyes. People are starving, so they are skeletons,” said Gad Al -Kurd, who presented stories to the BBC and Deir Siegel and others.
But it is not just an observer. It is a Ghazan who lived through many of the difficulties that reports, and she wants “the world to see.”
The Kurds were forced to move eight times the same, while she was writing about the residents of the displaced Gaza. It is the 12 -kilogram of the same malnutrition that affects many Palestinians here. I have seen friends dying.
“Am I shocked and I don’t even know?” I asked.
The Kurds said: “We lose relatives, friends and colleagues, and we do not have time to cry.” “We say goodbye to them. Then we run the page.”
With international journalists banning a marine report from Gaza, CBC News joined the European Broadcasting Union members (EBU) to collect resources and expertise on the ground inside the region to document the hunger crisis.
Many local journalists do not get a chance to turn the page before killing them as well. The United Nations Human Rights Office says at least 247 died in Gaza since October 7, 2023, a number they say “must shock the world.” It is called by the Journalists Protection Committee as the “smallest conflict for journalists” since 1992, when the organization began to keep the records.
Some correspondents are intentionally targeted by Israel, which accuse them of working in Hamas – usually without providing any evidence. Fellows call it an attempt to intimidate them in silence.
Producer Hassan Salmi said: “We know that this is a message of threat to Gaza journalists to stop covering here. Because this army is angry with any voice coming out of the Gaza Strip,” Producer Hassan Salmi said.
Israeli journalist Nir Hason agrees. He writes to Haritz.
“We cannot excuse destruction, death, hunger and displacement in Gaza. We cannot explain this, so we do what we can even see the world.”
The Israeli media has also raised a party in Gaza. It often avoids covering events that affect Palestinians during the war – such as civilian deaths or lack of food – or emphasizes official government publications of the situation.
This appears to be the great way of Israelis like it. A survey conducted by the Ashord Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in May found that 64 percent feel that there is no need to show a broader picture regarding the ordeal of civilians in Gaza.
“The Israeli media has become very national,” said Schwartz Altishler. Since October 7, newspapers and television networks have chosen to provide “comfort for the public” and “local pride” instead of coverage that they may not want to see.
Now, when angry demonstrators are walking in Madrid or Montreal, or when the world’s leaders flourish Israel and recognize Palestine, “Most of the audience is really surprised by the anger facing Israel,” she said. “They do not understand where it comes.”
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