His name is Mohammad Al-Motawaq. He is 18 months old. And he is starving in Gaza

[David__77]

In a tent by the Mediterranean Sea, Hidaya Al-Motawaq cradles her crying baby boy and tries to offer what comfort she can. “Khalas,” she murmurs repeatedly. “Khalas, khalas.” Enough, that’s enough.

Mohammad is a year and a half old and nearly all bone. His eyes protrude, as does his swollen stomach. His spine is so sharp and so defined, it seems it might poke through his thin skin.

…

This is just one family. Gaza has about 1 million children — about half the population. Doctors and aid workers warn chronic malnutrition is permanently damaging the health of children like Mohammad across the Gaza Strip.

“This war is targeting a generation, a generation of children who are below three years, because the central nervous system is nearly composed in [these] two, three years,” says Dr. Ahmed Al-Farrah, head of pediatrics at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza.

…

https://www.opb.org/article/2025/07/27/gaza-children-s-health-damaged-permanently-by-malnutrition-doctors-warn/

[mopinko]

9. hitler didnt send any aid to the jews.

as inadequate as it may b, israel sends food, and hamas steals it. either to feed their soldiers or to sell to starving ppl. they also do what they ca to warn civilians.

comparing this go the holocaust is how ‘sympathy’ is destroyed. and sympathy is not the point. never again is the point.

[Bluetus]

19. It sure looks a lot like genocide to many people who want to support Israel.

And unlike Hitler's genocide, this has every appearance of being motivated by economics gains.

I really don't know which is morally worse: exterminating people because of their religion or exterminating people because they live on valuable real estate.

[AloeVera]

22. Israel does not itself send food, to be clear.

The international community, through the UN, and other NGOs send food.

Israel has an OBLIGATION, under international law (and humanity) to ensure it facilitates the delivery of aid to civilians. It has failed miserably at that, whether intentionally by design or not. I happpen to think it is.

Even if Hamas steals aid - which is denied and contested by the UN and USAID and other aid agencies as a systematic, widespread occurrence - the amount would be a drop in the bucket in an ocean of need. To use that drop as a pretext to starve the entire population is unconscionable and genocidal. Starvation breaks an entire society and destroys their future, the children. It is not just how many die but about the many permanently damaged.

Never again is happening now. In Gaza. It IS the point.

[snot]

27. "Not as bad as Hitler..."

Isn't that pretty much the lowest possible bar?

And Israel's not done yet. Shouldn't we stop them before things get worse?

[David__77]

12. It is not either / or.

[Mosby]

2. He has cerebral palsy and hypoxemia.

Nt.

[mopinko]

4. people's willingness to fall for this crap

is boggling my mind.

[David__77]

16. The latest child to starve to death in Gaza weighed less than when she was born

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her 5-month-old daughter and wept. Esraa Abu Halib’s baby now weighed less than when she was born.

On a sunny street in shattered Gaza, the bundle containing Zainab Abu Halib represented the latest death from starvation after 21 months of war and Israeli restrictions on aid.

The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead. A worker at the morgue carefully removed her Mickey Mouse-printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest.

The girl had weighed over 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) when she was born, her mother said. When she died, she weighed less than 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds).

…

https://apnews.com/article/gaza-israel-starvation-children-malnutrition-baby-baf865b861c9a2fd9c75068936062146

[mopinko]

17. i'm not saying no 1 is starving. i am saying

that hamas is pushing out shitloads of propaganda. and also, they r well fed, themselves.
where is hamas’ responsibility to feed THEIR OWN ppl?

[David__77]

18. Understood. Thank you for the response.

[mike_c]

30. this is bullshit

No one in Gaza is "well fed," except the IDF. Using deliberate starvation to reduce a population is a crime against humanity, and I would hope no one here advocates it. A response up thread suggests that the child's condition in the OP isn't even the result of food deprivation, but rather cerebral palsy. What magnificent diagnostic skills! There must be thousands of Gazan children with CP. Perhaps that's why they throw themselves in front of bombs and bullets, too.

Those last sentences are , of course.

[mopinko]

3. that child has cerebral palsy. that pic is cropped.

there’s another child in the full pic who is obviously healthy. and mom looks fine, too. show me a mom of a starving child who eats herself.
i cant seem to link to the wider pic, but it’s here.
let’s not fall for hamas propaganda, eh?

https://david-collier.com/the-truth-behind-the-viral-gaza-famine-photo/

[AloeVera]

5. Whatever helps you sleep at night...

As usual, pro-Israel bloggers and their helpers use whatever triviality they can find to deny the inhumanity and suffering.

There is confusion about the name of the child in various reports, with two different children being conflated, Mohammed al -Mutawaq, and Muhammed al-Matouq. Only one has cerebral palsy. But hey, let's glom onto that screw-up, it works to discredit!

This David Collier...hmmm...who claims to have SEEN the medical report but won't publish it because you know, privacy. This after having already disclosed the child's medical history. Lol. There's other hasbara and unconfirmed claims too, but why bother?

So what does this amount to, anyway? The practice of eugenics? Oh well, it's cerebral palsy! The child was gonna die anyway! Of course totally ignoring the fact why the child is so horribly wasted- the lack of nutrition AND the banning of the medicine he needs! There are thousands of chronically ill, cancer and heart patients, diabetics etc who have died or will die due to lack of medicine Israel won't allow in! And the destruction of hospitals and the medical system of course.

You should read up on the cortisone response in women under stress and malnutrition and what it causes.

This Mohammed has a sister, not a brother. If you read the o/p link, you would know.

There are plenty of pics and videos of other starving children, both dead and barely alive. Videos taken in hospital wards. Some require a Graphic Content warning, they are so bad. Testimonies of doctors, the UN, MSF, etc etc etc Palestinians themselves. Hospitals are filled beyond capacity with the malnourished and dying. Look up videos of those scenes.

Are they all lying?

[mopinko]

7. my only point is that there is as much misinformation as real info coming out of the region.

there have been other viral pics of sick kids, as well as pics from places like yemen, where no 1 seems to notice the famine.
and the part where everything is blamed on israel and almost nothing on hamas makes my blood boil.
i do wish there were more credible journos there.

and ftr, i was a hospice volunteer for 5 yrs, and saw kids, here in chicago, w all the medical care in the world, who looked like they were starving.

[AloeVera]

25. It's a lot harder to believe what you don't want to

I get it.

But at some point you gotta start believing your lying eyes!

Just look at ALL the children.

[TiberiusB]

6. Simple solution

Just call a one or two day cease fire and let outside journalists have free access to Gaza. It is amazing how things could be so easily explained with a simple change in policy toward journalists. Instead of, you know, shooting them. If only Hamas would stop blocking journalists from covering the "war" as Israel, with only one of the ten most powerful militaries, is forced to look on helplessly.

[mopinko]

8. it rly wd help. so much bs out there.

[David__77]

11. Israel doesn't want witnesses to the crimes.

[TiberiusB]

26. I'm well aware

That was 100% sarcasm on my part. Israel, as the vastly more powerful military force, could easily allow the press into Gaza and the West Bank and dispel any doubts about their conduct.

[AloeVera]

23. I know! Just like they steal aid under the helpless gaze of IDF soldiers and their gazillion drones!

Seriously, if foreign journalists had been allowed in from the beginning, this "war" would have been over sometime in 2023. Someone knew how important they are in shifting public opinion and support.

[David__77]

10. Cerebral palsy doesn't cause starvation.

[mopinko]

13. it causes muscle wasting.

it looks like starvation, even here.

[AloeVera]

24. But this child IS being starved. His mother is unable to find food

Anything else is deflection from the reality of that starvation.

[Butterflylady]

31. My brother has cerebral palsy,

Never had muscle waste.

[snot]

29. If the testimony of hundreds of medical & independent agency personnel is part of a hoax,

why won't Israel allow journalists into Gaza?

[David__77]

14. Thanks to Democrats speaking up

Link to tweet

[David__77]

15. Rep. Jennifer McClellan

Link to tweet

[Bluetus]

20. And a good first step would be for all politicians and American Jews

to acknowledge toe corrosive effects that AIPAC has had on our politics and the world at large. IMHO, AIPAC is the enemy of Jewish people everywhere.

[mountain grammy]

21. Yes!

This Jew agrees! AIPAC is the enemy of peace.

[Beastly Boy]

32. Bullshit exposed. Fake outrage remains.

The photo of the toddler who became a symbol of hunger in Gaza: Investigation shows he suffers from genetic disease

Photos of Muhammad al-Matouq, the emaciated Gazan toddler photographed wearing a diaper made from a garbage bag, were published in nearly every media outlet covering the crisis in the Strip; But an independent journalist finds that he suffers from a background of genetic diseases, including cerebral palsy and a lack of oxygen in the blood; which contribute to his appearance; His diseases were omitted from report, and the narrative of starvation in Gaza intensified

--snip--

Among the most influential visuals was a photo of 18-month-old Palestinian toddler Muhammad al-Matouq, taken by journalist Ahmad al-Arini. The image—showing the child in a makeshift diaper made from a black trash bag held by his mother—was widely published by major outlets including CNN, The New York Times, Sky News, The Guardian, Daily Mail, The Times, and the BBC. Even the pro-Israel Daily Express featured it.

“I took the photo to show the world the extreme hunger faced by babies and children in Gaza,” al-Arini told the BBC. He said he found the boy and his mother living in a tent in Gaza City after being displaced from northern Gaza, with little more than a small stove inside. He claimed the toddler had dropped from 9 kg to 6 kg—about half the healthy weight for his age—and had never received breast milk, infant formula or supplements.

Al-Arini described the tent as “resembling a grave,” emphasizing the visual as symbolic of Gaza’s plight. But investigative journalist David Collier published a detailed report revealing that the child suffers not from starvation, but from rare genetic conditions—including cerebral palsy and blood oxygen deficiency. Collier based his findings on a medical report from the Basma Association for Aid in Gaza, signed by Dr. Saeed Mohammed al-Nassan, which stated the boy has required nutritional supplements since birth in December 2023—two months after the war began—and that his medical condition stems from chronic illness affecting muscle tone, movement and posture. Collier also pointed out that al-Arini’s photo omits the boy’s older brother Jude, age 3, who appears healthy in other, less widely distributed images. He noted that Muhammad’s mother, Huda, also shows no signs of severe malnutrition that would suggest an overall family food crisis.

https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/bjtpa6vvgl

Care to make a retraction?... Didn't think so.