Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
The NYT has filled its main e-page with article about starvation in Gaza and other anti-Israel news. Here, for example is the upper-left of today’s front e-page:
And that’s pretty much what it looked like for the past couple of weeks. My issue is that I used to trust the Times, but they’ve shown a strong anti-Israel slant to their news. The issues for me are twofold: is the IDF deliberately killing Gazan civilians seeking food? and Is there really pervasive starvation in Gaza? The NYT, which appears to take most of its “yes” answers to these questions from either the Gazan Health Ministry—famous for lying and spreading propaganda—or taking stuff from social media without checking. The latter is the subject of this post.
As for the IDF trying to kill Gazan civilians, I would accept that only with indubitable evidence, not from word of mouth or the Gazan Health Ministry. That’s because the IDF has everything to lose by trying to kill Gazan civilians deliberately. (And that’s the reason they are not committing “genocide”.)
I have seen on various posts not only pictures of Gazan children said to be starving, but also corrections to those pictures. The photos were taken in other countries, for instance, or showed children wasted not from lack of food, but from disease. Because of the interest of most of the world—and now the NYT, which I used to trust—in painting Israel as evil, I can’t put credence in such photos unless they’re verified. And that’s hard to do, just like the pervasive MSM reports of starvation itself. But one photo widely circulated by the NYT has been checked, and the paper clearly didn’t do its job.
I got the following email from a reader:
Anyone else following the saga of that utterly misleading picture of a supposedly starving Gazan child whose picture was published this weekend again and again? For example, the NYTimes circulated it to its 20 million Instagram followers, but the retraction/correction is being circulated in another Times Instagram account with 88K followers.
Various people are following this on X, this is actually a good summary, just scroll down for today’s/yesterday posting. [JAC: The Ackman post below is the beginning of a good summary thread.]
JAC: I’ve put some material below substantiating this claim. First, an article in the New York Post. Click headline to read:
The New York Times appended a story it published last week containing a shocking image of a child purportedly suffering from starvation in Gaza with an editor’s note Tuesday.
The note informs readers that Mohammed Zakaria al Mutawaq — the Gazan boy “diagnosed with severe malnutrition” and pictured in the article — also suffers from “pre-existing health problems.”
“We recently ran a story about Gaza’s most vulnerable civilians, including Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, who is about 18 months old and suffers from severe malnutrition,” a spokesperson for the outlet said in a statement.
You can see the pictures of the poor, emaciated Mohammed at the link, but they’re copyrighted so I can’t reproduce them. I’ll put one from a tweet below. But there’s more:
“We have since learned new information, including from the hospital that treated him and his medical records, and have updated our story to add context about his pre-existing health problems,” the spokesperson continued.
Why didn’t the NYT check in the first place before it and the MSM ran with the picture? But I digress. More from the Post:
The stark images of little Mohammed — shown with a gaunt face and his spine protruding from his back as his mother held him — went viral last week, with many using him as the poster child for starvation in the Palestinian enclave amid Israel’s war against Hamas.
Days after the New York Times published images of Mohammed, pro-Israel group HonestReporting noted on July 27 that the boy’s older brother, Joud, is standing in the background, appearing in far better condition.
As Honest Reporting notes, this photo and its attendant claim of starvation were picked up and run by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, The Daily Express, which called the photo “A horrifying image encapsulating the ‘maelstrom of human misery’ gripping Gaza”, and more. As the HR article says:
Similar versions of this claim appeared in NBC News, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Daily Mail, and even BBC News, which went so far as to interview the photographer, Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim al-Arini, who suggested the image showed the starvation now afflicting the Strip.
But the truth started to come out (see HR for the investigations). The Post continues in its piece:
Mohammed’s mother has also indicated that her son suffers from a “muscle disorder” for which he receives specialized nutrition and physical therapy.
She noted, in a CNN segment last week, that her son was “happy” and able to “sit upright.”
The Times note did not elaborate on the pre-existing health problems from which Mohammed suffers. However, pro-Israel journalist David Collier reported last week that the young boy has “cerebral palsy, hypoxemia, and was born with a serious genetic disorder,” citing a May 2025 medical report from Gaza.
The thing is, as my reader noted, the initial photo and claim was published to the NYT’s 20 million Instagram followers as well in a front-page article that subscribers could read, but the correction, below, was made in a different account with only 88,000 followers. In the meantime, the world had bought it, not only from the Times but from NBC, the Guardian, BBC, and other sources. Here’s the whole correction. Note that they affirm their basic premise, though, in the first and last sentences. Do you trust them after this? And do you trust what they hear from the Gazan Health Ministry, or even the anti-Israel United Nations?
Here’s a tweet about the post and correction by Bill Ackman (yes, it’s Bill Ackman, but don’t dismiss this since there are multiple independent sources reporting on the NYT’s credulity):
The least the @nytimes could do, would be to post the correction of their starving boy story on their main site with 55 million followers. That would help mitigate the damage they have caused.
It speaks loudly that the original story was on the front page, top-of-the-fold right… https://t.co/di5eHlyTZJ
The NYT article on Mohammed al-Mutawaaq—which fueled global outrage at Israel—originally quoted his mother saying he was “born healthy,” without noting his illness.
That line was later quietly deleted—yet wasn’t mentioned in the Editor’s Note. pic.twitter.com/19oFsb3yYA
Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, who is about 18 months old and was born during the war, lives with his mother and brother in a tent on a Gaza beach.
Mohammed’s mother, Hedaya al-Mutawaq, 31, said the toddler’s father was killed last October when he went out to seek food.
“I walk the streets looking for food,” she said by phone, her voice barely audible. The charity kitchens she relies on to help feed Mohammed and his brother, Joud, 3, cannot always help, and they go hungry. “As an adult, I can bear the hunger,” she said. “But my kids can’t.”
Mohammed, according to his doctor, had pre-existing health problems affecting his brain and his muscle development. But his health deteriorated rapidly in recent months as it became increasingly difficult to find food and medical care, and the medical clinic that treated him said he suffers from severe malnutrition.
“I look at him and I can’t help but cry,” she said.
“We go to bed hungry and wake up thinking only about how to find food,” she added. “I can’t find milk or diapers.”
JAC: There’s also a video of the emaciated Muhammad with his mother above the next two lines.
Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, about 18 months old, being held by his mother, Hedaya al-Mutawaq, 31. They and his brother live in a tent on a Gaza beach. Mohammed’s father was killed last year when he went to seek food.
Mohammed was diagnosed with severe malnutrition by the Friends of the Patient clinic and Al-Rantisi children’s hospital, she said, but there was little they could do. On a recent visit to the clinic, she said, “they told me, ‘His treatment is food and water.’”
Since his brother was fine, it’s pretty clear that his severe malnutrition was not caused by Israel’s withholding of food. The poor kid was sick and probably couldn’t take in any food. He also had cerebral palsy. Note that the NYT implies that Mohammed was made worse by famine, but again, his brother and mother were okay. No, he wasn’t starving to death, but dying from pre-existing health problems.
Here’s the editor’s note that the NYT has now put at the bottom of the original article:
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.
They didn’t emend it enough, clearly! Was he suffering from “severe malnutrition” caused by Israel, or because he was sick? A few more tweets:
The IDF catches the NYT in a related lie:
BREAKING: The IDF spokesperson directly calls out the New York Times after they issued a clarification.
The New York Times alleged that Israel never disputed the claims, in reality, they were dispute both privately and publicly.
You cannot retract the hate, the trauma, the global damage unleashed by your grotesque editorial failure.
On July 28, 2025, you published a photo and story of a Gazan child, Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, under the…
— Afshine Emrani MD FACC (@afshineemrani) July 30, 2025
Erin Molan notes how the NYT are, in the end, excusing Hamas for any responsibility for a lack of food in Gaza:
“You don’t have a responsibility to like Israel or support Israel… but you do have a responsibility not to lie to damage them… because the people you hurt – more than any Jew – more than any Israeli – are those children in Gaza – who need help – and they will not get it if the… pic.twitter.com/1usgSTSu0s
I’ve come to conclusion that media coverage on Israel can’t be trusted……this goes back many years. Unbelievable blood libel in this pictures against Jews.
And what can be done?
In the end, now that Israel is on the ground in Gaza, and moving the people around while it tries to fight Hamas, the IDF and Israeli government do have a responsibility to make sure that Gazan civilians aren’t starving. Their cutoff of aid while they were already in Gaza, I think, was a mistake. This is now being rectified, but the rectification is being minimized with unsubstantiated claims that the IDF is killing civilians trying to get food and with somewhat substantiated claims that Hamas continues to commandeer a lot of food that does come in. On top of that, the UN refuses to distribute aid that is sitting in Gaza near the border with Egypt, even though the UN has its own soldiers who could supervise that process. In the meantime, unsubstantiated reports of starvation, buttressed by pictures and duplicity of organs like the New York Times, is causing the world to turn against Israel and calling for a Palestinian state. Upshot: Hamas wins, and of course it knows that promulgating reports of starvation will help it gain a state.
Yes, any Gazan civilians suffering from hunger should be helped, and helped by Israel. Now that the IDF is more or less in control, feeding civilians is pretty much Israel’s responsibility. As far as I can see, it is trying, but with organs like the NYT spreading lies, and countries like the UK and France using the rumors of famine to give Palestine a state, I cannot see a good long-term solution that will bring peace. A Palestinian state is about as far from a guarantee of peace as you can get.
UPDATE: Here’s an article from the Washington Free Beacon claiming that the UN is actually helping Hamas steal humanitarian food aid. I’ll put in one quote. If you want to reject the claims because of the source, go ahead, but what matters is whether what’s said is true, not which source reported it:
Every day this week, hundreds of U.N. trucks stacked with pallets of humanitarian aid have exited Israeli-patrolled routes and rumbled into population centers across the Gaza Strip, where Israel has implemented daily pauses in military operations.
Many of the trucks, though traveling under the enhanced Israeli protections introduced on Sunday, have not reached U.N. warehouses, according to Gazans on the ground. Once the trucks have arrived in the population centers, armed Hamas militants have hijacked the cargo, the Gazans said, and what aid has arrived at the warehouses has disappeared into a patronage system controlled by Hamas.
Most Gazans have been forced to buy the aid at exorbitant prices from merchants hand-picked and heavily taxed by Hamas.
“Fifty trucks arrived yesterday at warehouses in Gaza City, and Hamas stole all of the aid,” Moumen Al-Natour, a 30-year-old lawyer in the northern Gaza capital, said on Tuesday. “Today, the aid went on sale in the black markets at very high prices.”
Al-Natour said a childhood friend, seeking to feed his family, joined a hungry mob trying to loot the trucks and was trampled to death along with a number of other civilians.
Gazans and Israeli military officers say this has been the reality in Gaza since fighting resumed in March. Hamas exerts near-total control over U.N.-led aid operations and seizes nearly all the incoming goods to feed and finance its terrorist regime, according to the people. Rather than confront the problem, U.N. officials have effectively aligned with Hamas, prolonging the war and the suffering of Gazans, the people say.
Of course who would report this but an obscure conservative venue? The big MSM won’t touch this story with a ten-foot pole. They should at least investigate its claims.
More update: An op-ed from the WSJ:
An excerpt:
That harm was clear to me in Gaza, where I stood surrounded by nearly 600 trucks worth of food, water and diapers, all ready to be delivered. The U.N. refused to do the job, saying it couldn’t operate safely with Israeli protection. Instead it asked that security be provided by the “Gaza Blue Police”—a euphemism for Hamas’s internal security forces. This is the same group the U.N. has repeatedly accused of stealing aid, including in October 2023, only weeks after the Hamas-led massacre.
In addition to rejecting IDF protection, the U.N. has declined to cooperate with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, despite its backing by the U.S. The result is that food meant for children like Mohammed is left to rot. Put simply, the U.N. would rather work with Hamas than the Israelis or the Americans.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has coordinated and facilitated the entry into Gaza of more than 1.86 million tons of humanitarian assistance, more than 78% of which has been food. The population of Gaza is about 2.1 million. The only comparable effort in modern history is the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49, during which the Allies delivered 2.3 million tons of supplies to 2.5 million West Berliners over 15 months. Even then, the aid was going to an allied population. “There is no historical precedent for a military providing the level of direct aid to an enemy population that Israel has provided to Gaza,” writes John Spencer of the Modern War Institute at West Point.
But these facts rarely break through the noise. Instead, the world sees a photo of a suffering child, assumes what news editors want them to assume, and then shares it without asking questions. The context is stripped away. There is real suffering in Gaza. But when that suffering is exploited for propaganda, and when humanitarian systems are paralyzed by politics and ideology, it is the most vulnerable—like young Mohammed al-Mutawaaq—who pay the price.
NBC News highlights the role of these sorts of photos:
Public opinionabout Israel’s conduct in Gaza appears to be changing in the United States and elsewhere as striking photos and videos of emaciated children and their starving parents emerge and aid agencies warn of famine.
45 thoughts on “The NYT screws up when touting “famine” in Gaza, but buries its correction”
I would love to know the actual facts of the matter, but unfortunately the fog of war and the propagandists loudly blaring on each side make that impossible.
See my comment at 4. below. There are things we can know – or know to be more likely – than what is being claimed. There’s no real need to “both sides” an issue and take a position somewhere in the middle…
Thank you, that is interesting evidence.
Thanks Jerry for posting this.
This is really bad for the NYT. It’s clearly deliberate, as evidenced by how easy it would have been in the first place to avoid these egregious errors, and their pathetic efforts at correction.
It is impossible now to trust the NYT’s reporting on the situation in Gaza and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict at large. They, along with other media such as the BBC, and many elite universities, are part of this strange institutionalized anti-Semitism on the left.
I no longer trust either the New York Times or the Washington Post on any story with political or significant cultural implications. It amazes me that anybody still does. Whenever I fact check them against available primary sources, I find distortions, omissions, framing meant to mislead, core facts reported but buried deep in the story, emotional anecdote posing as evidence, etc. This doesn’t mean that everything they report is wrong; it does mean that those who accept their reporting as accurate without either fact checking it or considering alternative frames likely do so only because they agree with the portrayal.
We long ago left the world of “news” and entered one of narrative construction. These people are largely in the business of constructing social “truth”–not reporting it. The “preaching to the choir” business model is partly to blame, but the greater contributor is that many of the journalists today have swallowed whole their academic training and truly believe that everything is “socially constructed.”
Welcome to the world of post-modern activists having replaced working-class reporters.
Just to say that I have read and taken to heart your sentiments.
Wow. This level of deceit is usually reserved for attacks on Republicans.
If they had to go with this picture, it means they couldn’t find any actual starving children.
I’d replace “Republicans” with “one’s political opponents”.
When I opened the front door this morning the sidewalk was wet so it must have rained during the night. The road was wet too but not the opposite sidewalk. So perhaps a water main had sprung a leak? Or maybe a cleaner truck had been past. Once I turned the corner it was completely dry and there weren’t signs that the water had actually flowed anywhere – so I guess it was safe to rule out the leak and go with the street cleaner theory.
When I see a photo of an emaciated Gazan kid I think of famine. But then I see his mother with healthy, rosy cheeks. Knowing that a mother would never feed herself before her hungry child I must look for further evidence of famine but can’t find any. A famine causing such emaciation is likely affecting thousands – if not tens of thousands – of other kids. But I can’t find Hamas hunger-porn anywhere. In the face of famine, this would really be a coup for them and their propaganda machine will capitalise on it ad nauseum.
Presented with evidence of suffering in Gaza, are there things I can know about the situation without consulting any other source while knowing that most sources are tainted in one way or another? Thank you Occam for your parsimonious goodness!
The Israel mis-reporting has been going on for decades. But this is worst I’ve seen.
And the mistakes always go one way.
They’re not mistakes.
Pathetic, absolutely pathetic. I am so disgusted with news reporting these days that I can barely bring myself to look at any news at all.
Reader Doug summed it up quite well above: “Welcome to the world of post-modern activists having replaced working-class reporters.”
I’ve never trusted NYT on Israel. How could they fall for a “starving child” photo when the mother looks fine? Hello? They’re not even trying.
Yes, and if there were dozens of starving children, why couldn’t they pick one who was emaciated solely from lack of food? Instead they have one who is emaciated because of illness.
That’s how propaganda works, and how it needs to be critically appraised, Fr. Katze. We should assume that the image or the story presented illustrates the propagandist’s case to the very best possible advantage. It’s going to be the best they’ve got. They put their best foot forward and want their audience to believe all their other feet are just as good. But if the best they’ve got turns out to be fake, then it’s almost a certainty that there are no children going hungry in Gaza at all. If there were, the Blue Police would have rounded them up and put them in front of a photographer, along with their similarly emaciated family members showing other nutritional deficiencies. We’ve all seen famine porn, right?
This is not to say that signs of widespread starvation couldn’t appear in the coming weeks-months if the food distribution system isn’t fixed, and Israel may or may not have much leverage over armed Hamasniks controlling it. But the Times got suckered by Hamas propaganda and the paper doesn’t want to admit it.
Jerry, I’m eternally grateful that you’re helping to spread this more widely. Our Government is planning to recognize a Palestinian state next month as part of its cynical pivot away from the United States and into the loving arms of Muslim Europe. Shoot me now.
This—the demonization of Israel even if the news is fake—is a feature, not a bug. While Israel is under no obligation to give aid and comfort to the enemy, it needs to do everything it can to blunt the Hamas propaganda machine, which means flooding the zone with aid. Even if Israel is in the right overall (which it certainly is), it has done a poor job managing the information part of the war effort. Chris Cuomo (NewsNation) wants to see Israel allow reporters to move freely in Gaza, arguing that open reporting will set the record straight regarding the plight of the Gazans. I have my doubts, thinking that even if allowed to report freely, reporters themselves are ideologically charged and will only report on whatever narrative they are trying to promote. It’s a bad situation.
…and, as an extra, if Hamas, or a splinter group, kidnaps a well-known reporter, say Jeremy Bowen from the BBC, as some ME terrorists did with Terry Waite and John McCarthy a couple of decades ago, what then? Undoubtedly, more outrage dialled up to 11 from The West and The Media and heaped on Israel and the IDF for not protecting them. What solutions do the armchair generals and media experts have for the whole “bad situation”?
Cuomo is an idiot.
That’s all.
DavidAnderson_JD_NYC
@DavidandersonJd
Geez, Norman, I know that’s not what you meant, but giving aid and comfort to the enemy is the definition of treason. Not only is there no obligation to aid the enemy, there is an absolute obligation not to. Every felafel that gets into the stomach of a Hamas fighter helps him scramble over a rubble pile and onto a rooftop to shoot at an Israeli soldier, or man-handle a rocket onto its launcher. There must be some segments of opinion in the War Cabinet, perhaps simultaneously held in the same minds along with humanitarian instincts, troubled that any aid at all is sustaining the combat fitness of the enemy’s soldiers and killing Israel’s, which would be a grave crime against the Israeli state.
We talk of “flooding” Gaza with aid, so that even if Hamas hoards it, enough will leak through to avoid the damage from hunger to Israel’s standing. But then who will drive the “leaking” aid trucks? It’s not going to deliver itself. You can’t just pile it in the streets. The tough guys will get it first. What if drivers refuse to drive without Hamas protection and good offices, and won’t drive under Israeli supervision? What driver wants to be, in effect, a blockade runner with a price on his head? With the backup of trucks, it may be that point has been reached. Gaza is literally full of food — at least its main streets are — but no one wants to deliver it. Does Israel really control Gaza if Hamas is still controlling aid?
From a military point of view, guarding aid convoys against vermin where even the recipients of the free food wish you dead is a very low-yield and high-risk proposition for the IDF. Being attached to trucks crowded together in narrow streets surrounded by mobs denies them the all-important concealment, flexibility, improvisation, and freedom of movement they excel at, which explains their lopsided advantage in casualties, and makes them sitting ducks. If I was Prime Minister and the IDF Chief of Staff told me this was a militarily foolish proposition that would waste soldiers’ lives, I’d listen. Once Hamas surrenders and disarms, different story.
The whole situation is designed by all the actors to make it impossible for Israel to do what the international community thinks is right. (Which is to go out of existence.) Maybe Israel should just brazen it through and hope for the best in Washington.
Re “Maybe Israel should just brazen it through and hope for the best in Washington”, is there any other realistic alternative? I don’t see one.
Why shouldn’t Israel let any reporter in? Or is that a fib? Are reporters allowed in? If not why not? If only to let a parachuted pallet come crashing down on the reporter? Then they can claim a media genocide. The media can show how Palestinian (Hamas) men prevent women and children from accessing food.
I’ll be brief here b/c if you read my posts here you’ll know how angry I am about the ENTIRE Times’ (and PBS/BBC/ABC) coverage of all aspects of this conflict for…. oh… 70+ years.
Part of the reason I cancelled my subscription a few years ago. (Well, that and genderwang).
An amazing thing though is not only the fat parents, and Pals in every frame of every report in media and social media, but….. haven’t people seen pictures of actual famines before? Masses of people, all of them, barely able to move, skeletal, blank expressions, sunken eyes and cheeks. See Sudan or Yemen now, RIGHT NOW!, or many historical examples.
A famine is a hard thing to miss but evidently a REALLY easy thing to fake by “Pallywood”.
The amazing thing is how idiotic and unbelievable their blunt propaganda is. And yet widely believed!
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
DavidAnderson_JD_NYC
@DavidandersonJd
One thing I have noticed about many of the pictures supposedly depicting famine is how well framed they are and how colorful, as if they are works of art. It gives me pause.
The picture was dramatic, and clearly a misrepresentation, which means a prominent correction is called for. That said, there is ample credible reporting that there is significant hunger and malnutrition in Gaza, which means that Israel is failing in its moral responsibility to keep the population there adequately fed. In my view to argue otherwise is to be willfully blind to what is happening. To acknowledge this does not absolve Hamas of its own responsibility for what has happened.
Agreed. Jon Stewart recently had an interesting conversation with Peter Beinart, author of “Being Jewish After The Destruction Of Gaza – A Reckoning”. It is interesting that a devout Jew and a secular Jew have very similar views on the failings of Netanyahu and Israel’s prosecution of the war. Their views are distinctly counter to much of what is posted here, and they acknowledge that that is the case.
Beinart has long been well-known for his anti-Israel views, whereas Stewart is just a gullible clown. When did providing aid and comfort to the enemy become a requirement in war? The Allies certainly didn’t provide food and aid to the suffering civilians of Germany and Japan during WW2. And I have no compassion whatsoever for people who would gladly slit my throat if they had the chance.
Well, I agree Israel should do something if only to de-fang the useful idiots Hamas has on its side. But Alan, in the tragic history of human conflict when has there ever been a “moral responsibility” of a combatant to feed his enemy? The US certainly has never done it.
There is one sure way to end the suffering there; Hamas surrenders and returns the hostages, living and dead. They started this fight and they can end it.
Their historical view is very different: the Jews started the whole fight in 1948 by forming a non-Islamic state on (formerly) Islamic territory, which is anathema. This is also why a peaceful Two State Solution is and always has been a delusional pipe-dream.
The kids who are suffering in Gaza are not the enemy. They’re non-combatants. They’re just kids. And Israel doesn’t have to feed them directly. Just get out of the way and allow the international community send much more food aid in.
The “international community”? LOL! When the UN is in charge, all that food aid goes straight to Hamas terrorists, who sell their leftovers at massively inflated prices to fund their ongoing self-initiated war on the Jews. And perhaps that’s the point.
Leslie Macmillan has been saying for days, if not weeks, that photos such as the one of this little boy are clearly of children with preexisting health conditions. Ditch the NYT. I don’t read anything they write… Not for years. They lost all credibility with me long ago.
The starving boy story was debunked in the Times of London a couple of days ago, although they originally printed it as true.
Children used in some of the famine photos in fact have other debilitating diseases:
I read a rumour that Israel is considering suing NYT for $10 billion in damages for the misinformation article. They should have had the retraction in great big splashy sorry we was wrong on the front page.
It is utterly infuriating how many dimwits believe the propaganda. You can easily see how AI will be able to manipulate people’s allegiances and actions. Gullibility will be hard to cure.
I cancelled my subscription to the Times due to their editorial policies months ago. A very slanted view on the world with often little or no balance.
Thank you Jerry! This is a service to all. I just wish millions instead of thousands were reading your blog.
I am your friend indebted to you always,
Peggy
🎯
Read the WSJ
Gaza Starvation Photos Tell a Thousand Lies
Hamas propaganda exploits seriously ill children, and Western media go along.
By Eitan Fischberger
July 30, 2025 2:23 pm ET
WALL ST JOURNAL
Re “Have you no shame?”, one can not shame the shameless.
There is no famine in Gaza. Where are the pictures of emaciated adults in Gaza, like the ones we have of the concentration camps of the Nazis, or those of the Ukrainian prisoners of war returning from Russia?
How can these pro-Hamas rags be allowed to throw into disrepute the compassionnate and measured way in which the nation under siege is attempting to defend itself, while at the same time sparing civilian lives and core infrastructure, as evidenced by every visual report of the paradise that is the territory under constant discriminate bombing ?
Unfortunately Bibi, as usual, screwed up. He decided to “defeat Hamas” by setting up an independent food distribution agency. Naturally it didn’t work out as planned.
Did he plan to starve the Gazans? The exact opposite. Setting up a food distribution agency to do so is, to say the least, a very odd way to starve people. But his new agency just couldn’t get food you where it is needed so there are now pockets of hunger in Gaza city, in particular. Gazans suffered unnecessarily.
Bibi being Bibi, of course blamed “antisemitism” and Hamas for everything. It’s not that there isn’t a lot of antisemitism and hypocrisy here. But it’s just like Bibi to never admit he was wrong about anything.
I would love to know the actual facts of the matter, but unfortunately the fog of war and the propagandists loudly blaring on each side make that impossible.
See my comment at 4. below. There are things we can know – or know to be more likely – than what is being claimed. There’s no real need to “both sides” an issue and take a position somewhere in the middle…
Thank you, that is interesting evidence.
Thanks Jerry for posting this.
This is really bad for the NYT. It’s clearly deliberate, as evidenced by how easy it would have been in the first place to avoid these egregious errors, and their pathetic efforts at correction.
It is impossible now to trust the NYT’s reporting on the situation in Gaza and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict at large. They, along with other media such as the BBC, and many elite universities, are part of this strange institutionalized anti-Semitism on the left.
I no longer trust either the New York Times or the Washington Post on any story with political or significant cultural implications. It amazes me that anybody still does. Whenever I fact check them against available primary sources, I find distortions, omissions, framing meant to mislead, core facts reported but buried deep in the story, emotional anecdote posing as evidence, etc. This doesn’t mean that everything they report is wrong; it does mean that those who accept their reporting as accurate without either fact checking it or considering alternative frames likely do so only because they agree with the portrayal.
We long ago left the world of “news” and entered one of narrative construction. These people are largely in the business of constructing social “truth”–not reporting it. The “preaching to the choir” business model is partly to blame, but the greater contributor is that many of the journalists today have swallowed whole their academic training and truly believe that everything is “socially constructed.”
Welcome to the world of post-modern activists having replaced working-class reporters.
Just to say that I have read and taken to heart your sentiments.
Wow. This level of deceit is usually reserved for attacks on Republicans.
If they had to go with this picture, it means they couldn’t find any actual starving children.
I’d replace “Republicans” with “one’s political opponents”.
When I opened the front door this morning the sidewalk was wet so it must have rained during the night. The road was wet too but not the opposite sidewalk. So perhaps a water main had sprung a leak? Or maybe a cleaner truck had been past. Once I turned the corner it was completely dry and there weren’t signs that the water had actually flowed anywhere – so I guess it was safe to rule out the leak and go with the street cleaner theory.
When I see a photo of an emaciated Gazan kid I think of famine. But then I see his mother with healthy, rosy cheeks. Knowing that a mother would never feed herself before her hungry child I must look for further evidence of famine but can’t find any. A famine causing such emaciation is likely affecting thousands – if not tens of thousands – of other kids. But I can’t find Hamas hunger-porn anywhere. In the face of famine, this would really be a coup for them and their propaganda machine will capitalise on it ad nauseum.
Presented with evidence of suffering in Gaza, are there things I can know about the situation without consulting any other source while knowing that most sources are tainted in one way or another? Thank you Occam for your parsimonious goodness!
https://x.com/HenMazzig/status/1950905223838314534
that may interest you.
Yes. I’m well aware of the consanguinity issues afflicting Muslim nations. Here’s a handy image:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_prevalence_of_consanguinity.svg
It’s ~45% among Palestinians.
The Israel mis-reporting has been going on for decades. But this is worst I’ve seen.
And the mistakes always go one way.
They’re not mistakes.
Pathetic, absolutely pathetic. I am so disgusted with news reporting these days that I can barely bring myself to look at any news at all.
Reader Doug summed it up quite well above: “Welcome to the world of post-modern activists having replaced working-class reporters.”
I’ve never trusted NYT on Israel. How could they fall for a “starving child” photo when the mother looks fine? Hello? They’re not even trying.
Yes, and if there were dozens of starving children, why couldn’t they pick one who was emaciated solely from lack of food? Instead they have one who is emaciated because of illness.
That’s how propaganda works, and how it needs to be critically appraised, Fr. Katze. We should assume that the image or the story presented illustrates the propagandist’s case to the very best possible advantage. It’s going to be the best they’ve got. They put their best foot forward and want their audience to believe all their other feet are just as good. But if the best they’ve got turns out to be fake, then it’s almost a certainty that there are no children going hungry in Gaza at all. If there were, the Blue Police would have rounded them up and put them in front of a photographer, along with their similarly emaciated family members showing other nutritional deficiencies. We’ve all seen famine porn, right?
This is not to say that signs of widespread starvation couldn’t appear in the coming weeks-months if the food distribution system isn’t fixed, and Israel may or may not have much leverage over armed Hamasniks controlling it. But the Times got suckered by Hamas propaganda and the paper doesn’t want to admit it.
Jerry, I’m eternally grateful that you’re helping to spread this more widely. Our Government is planning to recognize a Palestinian state next month as part of its cynical pivot away from the United States and into the loving arms of Muslim Europe. Shoot me now.
This—the demonization of Israel even if the news is fake—is a feature, not a bug. While Israel is under no obligation to give aid and comfort to the enemy, it needs to do everything it can to blunt the Hamas propaganda machine, which means flooding the zone with aid. Even if Israel is in the right overall (which it certainly is), it has done a poor job managing the information part of the war effort. Chris Cuomo (NewsNation) wants to see Israel allow reporters to move freely in Gaza, arguing that open reporting will set the record straight regarding the plight of the Gazans. I have my doubts, thinking that even if allowed to report freely, reporters themselves are ideologically charged and will only report on whatever narrative they are trying to promote. It’s a bad situation.
…and, as an extra, if Hamas, or a splinter group, kidnaps a well-known reporter, say Jeremy Bowen from the BBC, as some ME terrorists did with Terry Waite and John McCarthy a couple of decades ago, what then? Undoubtedly, more outrage dialled up to 11 from The West and The Media and heaped on Israel and the IDF for not protecting them. What solutions do the armchair generals and media experts have for the whole “bad situation”?
Cuomo is an idiot.
That’s all.
DavidAnderson_JD_NYC
@DavidandersonJd
Geez, Norman, I know that’s not what you meant, but giving aid and comfort to the enemy is the definition of treason. Not only is there no obligation to aid the enemy, there is an absolute obligation not to. Every felafel that gets into the stomach of a Hamas fighter helps him scramble over a rubble pile and onto a rooftop to shoot at an Israeli soldier, or man-handle a rocket onto its launcher. There must be some segments of opinion in the War Cabinet, perhaps simultaneously held in the same minds along with humanitarian instincts, troubled that any aid at all is sustaining the combat fitness of the enemy’s soldiers and killing Israel’s, which would be a grave crime against the Israeli state.
We talk of “flooding” Gaza with aid, so that even if Hamas hoards it, enough will leak through to avoid the damage from hunger to Israel’s standing. But then who will drive the “leaking” aid trucks? It’s not going to deliver itself. You can’t just pile it in the streets. The tough guys will get it first. What if drivers refuse to drive without Hamas protection and good offices, and won’t drive under Israeli supervision? What driver wants to be, in effect, a blockade runner with a price on his head? With the backup of trucks, it may be that point has been reached. Gaza is literally full of food — at least its main streets are — but no one wants to deliver it. Does Israel really control Gaza if Hamas is still controlling aid?
From a military point of view, guarding aid convoys against vermin where even the recipients of the free food wish you dead is a very low-yield and high-risk proposition for the IDF. Being attached to trucks crowded together in narrow streets surrounded by mobs denies them the all-important concealment, flexibility, improvisation, and freedom of movement they excel at, which explains their lopsided advantage in casualties, and makes them sitting ducks. If I was Prime Minister and the IDF Chief of Staff told me this was a militarily foolish proposition that would waste soldiers’ lives, I’d listen. Once Hamas surrenders and disarms, different story.
The whole situation is designed by all the actors to make it impossible for Israel to do what the international community thinks is right. (Which is to go out of existence.) Maybe Israel should just brazen it through and hope for the best in Washington.
Re “Maybe Israel should just brazen it through and hope for the best in Washington”, is there any other realistic alternative? I don’t see one.
Why shouldn’t Israel let any reporter in? Or is that a fib? Are reporters allowed in? If not why not? If only to let a parachuted pallet come crashing down on the reporter? Then they can claim a media genocide. The media can show how Palestinian (Hamas) men prevent women and children from accessing food.
I’ll be brief here b/c if you read my posts here you’ll know how angry I am about the ENTIRE Times’ (and PBS/BBC/ABC) coverage of all aspects of this conflict for…. oh… 70+ years.
Part of the reason I cancelled my subscription a few years ago. (Well, that and genderwang).
An amazing thing though is not only the fat parents, and Pals in every frame of every report in media and social media, but….. haven’t people seen pictures of actual famines before? Masses of people, all of them, barely able to move, skeletal, blank expressions, sunken eyes and cheeks. See Sudan or Yemen now, RIGHT NOW!, or many historical examples.
A famine is a hard thing to miss but evidently a REALLY easy thing to fake by “Pallywood”.
The amazing thing is how idiotic and unbelievable their blunt propaganda is. And yet widely believed!
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
DavidAnderson_JD_NYC
@DavidandersonJd
One thing I have noticed about many of the pictures supposedly depicting famine is how well framed they are and how colorful, as if they are works of art. It gives me pause.
The picture was dramatic, and clearly a misrepresentation, which means a prominent correction is called for. That said, there is ample credible reporting that there is significant hunger and malnutrition in Gaza, which means that Israel is failing in its moral responsibility to keep the population there adequately fed. In my view to argue otherwise is to be willfully blind to what is happening. To acknowledge this does not absolve Hamas of its own responsibility for what has happened.
Agreed. Jon Stewart recently had an interesting conversation with Peter Beinart, author of “Being Jewish After The Destruction Of Gaza – A Reckoning”. It is interesting that a devout Jew and a secular Jew have very similar views on the failings of Netanyahu and Israel’s prosecution of the war. Their views are distinctly counter to much of what is posted here, and they acknowledge that that is the case.
Beinart has long been well-known for his anti-Israel views, whereas Stewart is just a gullible clown. When did providing aid and comfort to the enemy become a requirement in war? The Allies certainly didn’t provide food and aid to the suffering civilians of Germany and Japan during WW2. And I have no compassion whatsoever for people who would gladly slit my throat if they had the chance.
Well, I agree Israel should do something if only to de-fang the useful idiots Hamas has on its side. But Alan, in the tragic history of human conflict when has there ever been a “moral responsibility” of a combatant to feed his enemy? The US certainly has never done it.
There is one sure way to end the suffering there; Hamas surrenders and returns the hostages, living and dead. They started this fight and they can end it.
Their historical view is very different: the Jews started the whole fight in 1948 by forming a non-Islamic state on (formerly) Islamic territory, which is anathema. This is also why a peaceful Two State Solution is and always has been a delusional pipe-dream.
The kids who are suffering in Gaza are not the enemy. They’re non-combatants. They’re just kids. And Israel doesn’t have to feed them directly. Just get out of the way and allow the international community send much more food aid in.
The “international community”? LOL! When the UN is in charge, all that food aid goes straight to Hamas terrorists, who sell their leftovers at massively inflated prices to fund their ongoing self-initiated war on the Jews. And perhaps that’s the point.
Leslie Macmillan has been saying for days, if not weeks, that photos such as the one of this little boy are clearly of children with preexisting health conditions. Ditch the NYT. I don’t read anything they write… Not for years. They lost all credibility with me long ago.
The starving boy story was debunked in the Times of London a couple of days ago, although they originally printed it as true.
Children used in some of the famine photos in fact have other debilitating diseases:
https://x.com/HenMazzig/status/1950905223838314534
I read a rumour that Israel is considering suing NYT for $10 billion in damages for the misinformation article. They should have had the retraction in great big splashy sorry we was wrong on the front page.
It is utterly infuriating how many dimwits believe the propaganda. You can easily see how AI will be able to manipulate people’s allegiances and actions. Gullibility will be hard to cure.
I cancelled my subscription to the Times due to their editorial policies months ago. A very slanted view on the world with often little or no balance.
Thank you Jerry! This is a service to all. I just wish millions instead of thousands were reading your blog.
I am your friend indebted to you always,
Peggy
🎯
Read the WSJ
Gaza Starvation Photos Tell a Thousand Lies
Hamas propaganda exploits seriously ill children, and Western media go along.
By Eitan Fischberger
July 30, 2025 2:23 pm ET
WALL ST JOURNAL
Re “Have you no shame?”, one can not shame the shameless.
There is no famine in Gaza. Where are the pictures of emaciated adults in Gaza, like the ones we have of the concentration camps of the Nazis, or those of the Ukrainian prisoners of war returning from Russia?
How can these pro-Hamas rags be allowed to throw into disrepute the compassionnate and measured way in which the nation under siege is attempting to defend itself, while at the same time sparing civilian lives and core infrastructure, as evidenced by every visual report of the paradise that is the territory under constant discriminate bombing ?
Unfortunately Bibi, as usual, screwed up. He decided to “defeat Hamas” by setting up an independent food distribution agency. Naturally it didn’t work out as planned.
Did he plan to starve the Gazans? The exact opposite. Setting up a food distribution agency to do so is, to say the least, a very odd way to starve people. But his new agency just couldn’t get food you where it is needed so there are now pockets of hunger in Gaza city, in particular. Gazans suffered unnecessarily.
Bibi being Bibi, of course blamed “antisemitism” and Hamas for everything. It’s not that there isn’t a lot of antisemitism and hypocrisy here. But it’s just like Bibi to never admit he was wrong about anything.