The crisis in Gaza will soon be completing its second year, having been ongoing since 7 October 2023, after Israel started its offensive attack in the aftermath of the surprise attack on Israel carried out by Hamas.
While conflicts between Israel and Palestine and Israel and Gaza have been ongoing for many decades now, however, post the October 2023 attack, Israel has been consistently attacking the other side, resulting in an unimaginable number of casualties, deaths, and infrastructure damage.
According to a CNN report, Gaza’s health ministry revealed that the death toll has climbed to an alarming 60,000 since Israel’s war on Hamas.
What Is This Viral Image?
Amidst all this, the image of a tiny baby in his mother’s arms, with his spine poking out grotesquely from his thin skin, ribs showing, and face gaunt, has gone viral as the face of the starvation people in Gaza are suffering from.
These viral images were taken by photographer Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini of an 18-month-old boy called Mohammed Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq.
The photos distributed by the Turkish news agency Anadolu were taken after the boy and his family were displaced from their north Gaza home.
Arini said that he wanted to “show the rest of the world the extreme hunger that babies and children are suffering from in the Gaza Strip”. He also claimed that the child living in a “tomb” like canvas tent did not have access to milk, formula, or vitamins.
Arini, speaking with the BBC, also said, “If you look at the photo closely, you will also see that Muhammad is wearing a plastic bag instead of diapers because of the lack of any humanitarian aid and the lack of any medicines.”
The photos were soon going viral with media publications from around the world picking them up, including the New York Times, NBC News, The Guardian, BBC, and others as proof of Israel’s inhumanity against Gaza and how the war is affecting the innocent common people there.
The Daily Express, in its report, wrote that this was “a horrifying image encapsulating the ‘maelstrom of human misery’ gripping Gaza.”
It also wrote, “Muhammad (1), …weighs the same as a three-month-old baby, as famine slowly snuffs out life… Hunger and suffering has now reached a level never seen before, with at least 12 children dying from malnutrition in the past 48 hours alone.”
The New York Times, in its report, quoted Muhammad’s mother, Hidaya, saying that “I look at him and I can’t help but cry.” She also said, “We go to bed hungry and wake up thinking only about how to find food,” and how “I can’t find milk or diapers.”
The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, also reacted to these images, commenting, “For anyone with any sense of humanity, you have to be moved by that, and you have to acknowledge that every innocent life matters, whether it be Israeli or Palestinian.”
The ABC’s Insiders also quoted Albanese saying, “A one-year-old boy is not a Hamas fighter, and the civilian casualties and deaths in Gaza is completely unacceptable. That boy isn’t challenging Israel’s right to existence, and nor are the many who continue to suffer from the unavailability of food and water.”
Read More: Heartbreaking Art/Cartoons Created For Israel-Hamas War
What Is Israel Saying?
Israel, of course, is trying to disprove this and claims that the child suffers from a genetic illness and is not in his current state simply due to starvation. Which, as an argument, doesn’t make much sense, since it doesn’t disprove the extreme level of humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza and the food and medical poverty that people are suffering from.
David Collier, a pro-Israel journalist, in a series of tweets, claimed that the child in the viral images was “not the face of famine. It is the face of a medically vulnerable child whose tragic situation was hijacked and weaponised”.
Collier, alleging to be exposing the truth behind the images, and how the media was being selective in its reporting, posted another photo of the child, his mother, and brother, writing, “Let me just start with other images the media chose not to use. Photographs of Mohammed with his 3-year-old brother Joud. Both mother and brother are healthy and fed.”
Posting a screenshot of a May 2025 medical report issued in Gaza, which confirms the same, he wrote that “Mohammed suffers from cerebral palsy, has hypoxemia, and was born with a serious genetic disorder. He has required nutritional supplements since birth.”
Collier also called out the media for falsely reporting that Mohammed’s father was killed by Israelis as he was looking for food outside. Instead, he was “killed on 28 October 2024” as he was caught “in a targeted strike on ‘al Qassabeeb’ street in Jabaliya” between Hamas and the IDF.
Pro-Israel monitor Honest Reporting also supported Collier’s views, writing that “Every outlet that promoted this false narrative must update their coverage to reflect the full truth: Muhammad has a medical condition.”
The organisation added, “He is not simply a victim of starvation, and the image has been presented in a misleading and incomplete way.”
Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) in a July 28, 2025, tweet, also wrote, “A photo of 5-year-old Osama al-Rakab has gone viral, used to falsely depict Israel as responsible for his condition, claiming Israel is starving children.”
COGAT, a unit within Israel’s Ministry of Defence, is responsible for overseeing civilian affairs in the West Bank and managing logistical coordination with Gaza and Israel.
COGAT also added that “Osama suffers from a serious genetic illness unrelated to the war. On June 12, we actively coordinated Osama’s exit from Gaza with his mother and brother through the Ramon airport. He is now receiving treatment in Italy.
Tragic images rightfully stir strong emotions, but when they’re misused to fuel hatred and lies, they do more harm than good. Don’t let compassion be exploited for propaganda. Check the facts before parroting blame.”
The Real Situation In Gaza
The issue of starvation in Gaza is not something that has happened recently.
For a while now, people, Palestine and Gaza activists, and NGOs have been talking about how Israeli forces are not allowing for resources like food and medical aid to reach Gaza and have alleged that the authorities are deliberately starving the people of Gaza.
Recently, US President Donald Trump, while having been reluctant to criticise Israeli military policy, also commented on how Gaza was witnessing “real starvation,” and that the US, along with British assistance, would help in setting up new food distribution centres.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has firmly denied any insinuations of starvation occurring in Gaza. He said, “There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza. We enable humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the war to enter Gaza – otherwise, there would be no Gazans.”
Many other reports directly contradict Netanyahu’s claims, though, showing what the horrifying reality might be on the ground.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: Firstpost, The Washington Post, The Week
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: Gaza, Gaza viral image, Gaza famine, Gaza hunger problem, Gaza starving child, Gaza starving child viral, Gaza strip, Hamas, hamas attack, hamas attack israel, israel, israel conflict, israel hamas, israel hamas conflict, israel hamas war, Palestine, War
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