Most mainstream media outlets have made it clear in recent years where their loyalties lie regarding the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.
But while rational observers can disagree about how both sides have reacted in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, the use of misleading photos to manipulate the narrative should never be deemed acceptable.
That’s what the New York Times essentially admitted it did with a photo originally presented as a severely malnourished child in Gaza.
A little legwork by a watchdog group called Honest Reporting helped expose the misrepresentation, as Breitbart reported:
The New York Times admitted Tuesday that an emaciated Palestinian child it featured on the the front page suffered from “pre-existing health problems” that it had presented, inaccurately, as the result of starvation.
There is an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza — the result of poor food distribution, not low supply, as Hamas and armed gangs loot aid convoys. Hamas also refuses to release Israeli hostages and end the war.
As Breitbart News reported, the child, photographed by Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini of the Turkish Anadolu agency, had a muscular disorder. Few outlets that ran the photo disclosed that fact to readers.
The photo had already spread far and wide online by the time the outlet issued its statement:
We have appended an Editors' Note to a story about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child in Gaza who was diagnosed with severe malnutrition. After publication, The Times learned that he also had pre-existing health problems. Read more below. pic.twitter.com/KGxP3b3Q2B
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) July 29, 2025
Here’s some of the social media reaction:
BREAKING: The New York Times has admitted that the Gazan child they plastered on the front page as malnourished was actually suffering from pre-existing health issues.
Once again, they spread propaganda to the world—then quietly walk it back after the damage is done. pic.twitter.com/a8F4GAlNmx
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) July 29, 2025
The New York Times: The child we used to indict Israel actually had severe pre-existing conditions. But hey — the photo worked, the outrage spread, and no one reads the corrections anyway.
War reporting as libel and malice. pic.twitter.com/8FG1rxN1mm
— Mark Dubowitz (@mdubowitz) July 30, 2025
The New York Times has now acknowledged that the Gazan child featured on its front page was not malnourished, but had underlying medical conditions…
But the damage was done already. pic.twitter.com/dAaAkE3CNx
— Radio Australis (@freedom4UU) July 30, 2025
Israel issued a statement denouncing the reports from the Times and a number of other international news agencies, per the Jerusalem Post:
“BBC, CNN, Daily Express, and The New York Times spread a misleading story using a picture of a sick, disabled child to promote a narrative of mass starvation in Gaza — playing into the hands of Hamas’s propaganda war,” Israel accused.
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