[jakelazaroff]

The editor's note in full:

> 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.

So a child starving to death also had "pre-existing health problems". What are they? Do they explain why he's severely malnourished? Are they actually relevant at all, or is this just a bullshit qualification meant to undermine any errant sympathy for a starving Palestinian boy? If only there were a journalist around to tell us!

[sqkz]

This is the problem with the editors here using weasel phrasing like "pre-existing health problems" while at the same time still strongly implying that this child's condition is caused by starvation. In fact he suffers from cerebral palsy, and other photos from the same photoshoot clearly show his apparently healthy brother and mother present at the same time. Source: https://david-collier.com/the-truth-behind-the-viral-gaza-fa...

[jakelazaroff]

Two paragraphs in and it's clear that your source exist exclusively to pump out hasbara (note the scare quotes around "famine"). Thousands of Gazan children are experiencing malnutrition and a child has died of starvation every single day for the past two weeks: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/29/nx-s1-5483520/gaza-famine-hun...

> The report said that more than 20,000 children have been admitted for acute malnutrition treatment between April and mid-July, with more than 3,000 of them severely malnourished. Hospitals have also reported a surge in hunger-related deaths among children under 5, with at least 16 fatalities recorded since July 17 alone.

[sqkz]

Would the Wall Street Journal be more acceptable to you? https://www.wsj.com/opinion/gaza-starvation-photos-tell-a-th...

[jakelazaroff]

Literally the first sentence of the op-ed admits propaganda from the IDF, which tightly controls what embedded reporters are allowed to see and say [1]:

> Over the weekend, I embedded with the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, where I saw the enormous quantities of humanitarian aid the United Nations has been refusing to distribute.

Very weird that the military that controls access to the Gaza Strip is blaming the UN? Delivering aid themselves is ostensibly why Israel and the US created the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (although the true motivation seems to be gathering desperate Palestinians in one spot so they can mass murder them; more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF's soldiers and mercenaries at GHF aid sites [2]).

Anyway, this conversation obviously isn't going to go anywhere. I'll just end by saying that it's extremely obvious to anyone remotely paying attention that Israel is committing depraved war crimes against a defenseless people here, which is why public opinion has shifted so dramatically against it.

Edit: I just looked up the author of that WSJ article and he's a former IDF sergeant? Pretty relevant detail for him to omit!

[1] https://newrepublic.com/article/176919/cnn-abc-nbc-reporters...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Gaza_Strip_aid_distributi...

[readthenotes1]

Or could the photographer have found other children that looked like they were in Bergen-Belsen?

And then released unfiltered photos?

I'm sure it's possible--I don't doubt the starvation--but I suspect persuasion/propaganda has been more of the Zeitgeist in that area for too long