There it was, on the front page of the New York Times: a photo of a painfully malnourished 18-month-old Gazan named Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq. It was accompanied by the headline, ‘Young, old and sick starve to death in Gaza: “There Is nothing.”’
Published on 25 July, this image was quickly reused by other media, including the BBC, CNN and the Guardian to demonise Israel. It provided seeming proof that Israel was wilfully starving innocent people and, above all, children to death.
Yet within days, the real story behind the photo began to emerge. It was discovered that Mohammed suffered from a congenital genetic disease, and that this was the likely cause of his skeletal condition. The starvation narrative was further belied by the fact that his older brother showed no signs of emaciation. He was pictured near Mohammed, but was cropped out of the published photo.
The New York Times ran an apology on 29 July, in the form of an editor’s note beneath the article. But it was more of a non-apology. It stated that ‘children in Gaza are malnourished and starving’, before acknowledging that ‘new information’, including from the hospital that treated Mohammed, had come to light. It ended by reiterating its commitment to reporting from Gaza ‘bravely, sensitively and at personal risk, so that readers can see firsthand the consequences of the war’.
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