Palestinian propaganda uses photos of children with cerebral palsy and cystic fibrosis to sell the lie about a famine in Gaza

From IsraellyCool:

"Media Uses Sick Gazan Kids to Sell a Famine

David Lange 

Last week, the following image – purportedly of a starving child in Gaza – made its way around the world thanks to the mainstream media:

 

 

Among those perpetuating this narrative: The Daily Express, Sky News, CNN, The Guardian, Daily Mail, New York Times, and The Times (UK).

But as I posted previously, investigative reporter David Collier uncovered that the boy – Mohammed Zakaria al Mutawaq – suffers from “cerebral palsy, has hypoxemia, and was born with a serious genetic disorder.” 

Despite David Collier’s post going viral, none of the above mainstream media outlets have apologized or rectified their stories to include this pertinent fact, except for the New York Times who added the following:

Editors’ Note: 

July 29, 2025

This article has been updated to include information about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child in Gaza suffering from severe malnutrition. After publication of the article, The Times learned from his doctor that Mohammed also had pre-existing health problems.

This is media malfeasance most horrid but perhaps something getting a bit lost in all of this is how it is not a one-off.

You see, the media has done something similar with five-year-old Osama al-Rakab, who Getty Images and others also held up as a poster child for malnutrition in Gaza:

but who also has a pre-existing condition (cystic fibrosis), and looks much better after receiving treatment in Italy, with Israel enabling him to travel for it:

 There’s also 11-month-old Sila Barbakh, who some media outlets like The Times of London claimed is starving, but who also suffers from a pre-existing illness (chronic gastrointestinal illness) unrelated to the war...

I am not suggesting that there are no hungry people in Gaza. Clearly the food distribution food chain has been disrupted by war factors, including Hamas stealing and diverting aid, overcharging for it, blocking it, and hoarding it for their own fighters and VIPs.

But surely if there was an actual widespread famine, people would not need to pass off multiple kids with preexisting illness as starving; there would be enough formerly-healthy starving kids to photograph.

Besides, the numerous photos of regular or even overweight Gazans hardly lend credence to the famine allegations either.

When the mainstream media repeatedly presents chronically ill children as famine victims – without doing the most basic due diligence – it stops being a mistake and becomes a pattern. A pattern that feeds the Hamas propaganda machine, manipulates public opinion, and erodes trust in journalism.

And that is how photojournalism becomes photo-manipulation."