“Palestinian journalists in Gaza ‘Being starved’, media watchdog says” is the headline of a recent Financial Times article that relies heavily on faulty claims made by an agenda-driven body.

It quotes a Gazan reporter who used to work for a Hamas-affiliated news agency and gives an uncritical platform to hypocritical foreign media outlets urging Israel to help Gazan freelancers — some of whom worked alongside Hamas as it murdered Israelis on October 7, 2023.

The Financial Times’ main source is the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a body that redefines international law to designate terrorists as journalists. The article quotes Jodie Ginsberg, the CPJ’s chief executive, declaring that Gaza journalists are “becoming emaciated and struggling to focus,” which is “impacting their ability to report the situation.”

It even delves into demonization of Israel by implying that a proven Hamas terrorist is an innocent Al-Jazeera journalist:

The CPJ this week warned of “acute danger” to Al Jazeera’s Gaza correspondent Anas Al-Sharif after an Israeli military spokesman claimed that Sharif was a Hamas fighter, something both he and the CPJ said was baseless.

The article mentions a joint statement by The Associated Press, AFP, BBC News and Reuters, urging Israel to allow the eviction of their 

Gazan freelancers who are “increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families.”
But there is no mention — by the Financial Times or the news organizations — that some of these freelancers infiltrated into Israel with

Hamas during the October 7 massacre, documented atrocities, and made a profit off of them.
The hypocrisy of crying press freedom and highlighting the dire conditions faced by journalists in Gaza, while ignoring the plight of Hamas hostages, is appalling.
 
It is also selfish. Because the hidden premise of both the CPJ and the foreign media that signed the statement is that journalists’ lives are worth more than the lives of “regular” people. The people highlighted in the article should not be called journalists but Hamas propagandists.

To clarify, we don’t minimize anyone’s suffering during wartime — we simply question the hidden bias behind an article that favors journalists who have worked closely with Hamas.
Related Reading: AFP, Whose Photojournalists Crossed Into Israel With Hamas, Now Begs Israel To Protect Its Freelancers

This point is particularly striking, because the Financial Times quotes a journalist — Ola Al Asi — who worked for a Hamas affiliated news agency:

Ola Al Asi, 31, a freelance journalist sheltering in Gaza City, said she has started turning down assignments because she does not have the physical energy to report. She said she collapsed on the road this week while walking to a solar powered charging point to charge her laptop and finish a story.

A quick online search of Al Asi reveals that she prides herself for having worked at “Shehab”  — a Hamas affiliated news agency in Gaza.

It is not clear whether the Financial Times vetted her or not. Either way, she cannot be used as a reliable source  — professionally or ethically.

Why should Israel grant access to her or other journalists who worked shoulder to shoulder with the terrorists and stood by when Israelis were murdered or kidnapped?

Are starving journalists more important than starving Israeli hostages, whose release by Hamas can end the war?
Only a self-centered, holier-than-thou approach that implicitly justifies journalists’ links to Hamas and expects Israel to ignore them can explain the twisted logic of The Financial Times and the news organizations that are still profiting off of Oct. 7 propaganda coverage.

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