‘We don’t want to’: Ten news anchors overcome with emotion

The hosts of Ten’s new current affairs offering, Denham Hitchcock and Amelia Brace, became visibly distressed during last night’s show.

10News+ hosts Amelia Brace and Denham Hitchcock both became visibly emotional during Thursday’s episode, following a harrowing report about starvation faced by children in Gaza.

The head of the World Health Organisation this week described Gaza as suffering “man-made mass starvation,” with a quarter of the territory’s population now facing famine-like conditions and close to 100,000 women and children are experiencing severe acute malnutrition.

10News+ focused on the toll the crisis was taking on Gaza’s children, among them Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, an 18-month-old child in Gaza City who weighs the same as a three-month-old baby.

Amelia Brace fought back tears as she spoke about the issue.

Both hosts appeared choked up as they back-announced the disturbing report.

“Denham, no matter what side you’re on in all this – and I think most people aren’t on sides – there is no parent, no person, who can look at those images and think that that’s OK,” Brace told her co-host.

“We don’t want to show you those pictures, we don’t want to have to tell you that story. But as journalists and as humans, we owe it to those kids to do something,” she continued, her voice faltering as she struggled to contain her emotion.

Earlier, Brace had introduced the story by acknowledging that it was a topic “we know you might want to turn away from … but we’re asking you to watch, because we all need to know about it.”

18-month-old Mohammed al-Mutawaq only weighs as much as a three-month-old. Picture: Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP

Denham Hitchcock appeared moved by the report.

The hosts explained that the report would focus on the starving children of Gaza: “Children who have no choice. Who have not picked a side, but who are dying because there is not enough food to keep them alive.”

This week, 109 global aid and human rights agencies – including Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam International and Amnesty International – united to sign a letter warning that civilians and their colleagues within Gaza are “wasting away”.

“As the Israeli government’s siege starves the people of Gaza, aid workers are now joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families,” the statement read.

“With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organisations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes.”

In their statement, the humanitarian organisations said that warehouses with tonnes of supplies were sitting untouched inside and outside Gaza, while people were “trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires”.

“It is not just physical torment but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage,” they said.

Originally published as ‘We don’t want to’: Ten news anchors overcome with emotion