Note: This story contains disturbing images.
In July 2025, news outlets circulated an image of a severely malnourished Palestinian child amid Israel's ongoing destructive assault and humanitarian aid blockade on the Gaza Strip in response to militant group Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the country.
The image depicted Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, reportedly about 18 months old, wearing a trash bag as a diaper and being held by his mother. Similar images of Muhammad — spelled "Muhammad," "Mohammad" and "Mohammed" by various outlets — also spread. Many news outlets framed the image as a symbol of mass starvation and impending famine in Gaza due to Israel's efforts to prevent food from entering the area.
But pro-Israeli media outlets and personalities almost immediately criticized the aforementioned framing, alleging that Muhammad had a medical condition that contributed to his emaciated state — and that therefore the image was being used in a misleading fashion.
Muhammad does have a muscle disorder, according to reputable reports — and Gazans with disabilities experience the effects of the conflict most acutely, according to a U.N. Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities statement. With the right nutrition and physical therapy, Muhammad was healthy, his mother reportedly told CNN, but Israel's humanitarian aid blockade — which the country eased in May, although severe restrictions remain — prevents not just food, but medical aid, from reaching Gaza's population.
Overwhelming evidence indicates that as of July 2025, Gaza's people were experiencing mass starvation caused by the blockade.
The first independent — but not yet peer-reviewed — survey of deaths in Gaza, released July 2025, found more than 80,000 fatalities since Oct. 7, 2023, suggesting the 60,000 Palestinian deaths reported by the Gaza Health Ministry represented an undercount. Most of those killed in the conflict are civilians, according to independent analyses and the United Nations.
Origin of claim
Pro-Israel news outlet Honest Reporting was the first to claim that the boy's condition stemmed from a "health disorder, not from a lack of food caused by Israel." Honest Reporting's July 27, 2025, story included images, purportedly also of Muhammad but with his supposed "healthy" brother in the background.
That same day, independent pro-Israel journalist David Collier alleged that the boy had cerebral palsy, hypoxemia — or low oxygen in the blood — and a suspected genetic disorder, which contributed to his condition. Collier, who also shared images with Muhammad's alleged brother, argued that the mainstream media neglected to share important details about the child's genetic medical disorders to perpetuate what he described as "the lie" of "Gaza gripped by mass famine and children dying from hunger" and to deliberately push a "deceptive narrative that only serves to benefit Hamas and create fake news."
Collier provided Snopes with images appearing to show a May 2025
"Nobody is arguing that the situation in Gaza is not awful," Collier said in an email. "Mohammed is evidence that severely vulnerable children can be at risk — not because of lack of food — but because of a lack of medical treatment and vitamin supplements. Media outlets had no right to use him as an example of widespread famine — that is just dishonest."
It is worth noting that for months, U.N. officials, aid groups and independent experts had warned that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were on the brink of famine, but the U.N. hadn't formally declared one for several reasons, including the very specific statistical conditions that must be met to meet the standard of famine — data that is largely not available from Gaza, according to the AP.
However, the world's leading body on hunger, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification or IPC, said in a July 29, 2025, alert that the "worst-case scenario of famine" is occurring in Gaza. Hospitals in Gaza also reported that children without underlying health conditions were dying of starvation, according to a July 25 Times of Israel story.
Muhammad's condition
In a July CNN report, the news outlet interviewed Muhammad's mother, Hidaya Al-Motawaq. Here's what the report said about Muhammad's condition (emphasis ours):
REPORTER: As starvation tightens its grip on Gaza, the most vulnerable are the first to find themselves in its clutches. Amid months of Israeli restrictions, 3-year-old Muhammad weighs just 13 pounds. His cries speak to all that he is lacking. Muhammad suffers from a muscle disorder, but with physical therapy and the right nutrition, his mother Hidaya said he was healthy, active and could sit upright. Not anymore. His small body has shed 6 pounds in short order.
AL-MOTAWAQ (through an interpreter): If there's food, we eat. If there isn't, we have no power except to rely on God. Some days, we go one or two days without eating.
REPORTER: Gaza's hospitals are filled with babies like Muhammad, and worried mothers like Hidaya, who are doing all they can to prevent their babies from becoming the next statistic.
The New York Times, in a July 29 statement, said it added "new information" about Muhammad's preexisting medical conditions provided by his doctor to give "readers a better understanding of his situation." This reaction, too, resulted in backlash, with many online users stating, for example, that Anne Frank, known for keeping a diary documenting her life as a Jewish teenager during the Holocaust, died of typhus, but that the blame for the circumstances leading to her death ultimately should be placed on the Nazis.
Snopes also reached out to several other news outlets that shared the image or Muhammad's story, including NPR and The Guardian, to ask whether they knew if Muhammad had existing health conditions and if so, why they chose not to include that information. We await responses.
Origin of image
Palestinian photojournalist Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini took the photograph of Muhammad, according to Getty Images.
In a July 24 BBC interview, Al-arini said he took the photo because he "wanted to show the rest of the world the extreme hunger that babies and children are suffering from in the Gaza Strip."
Al-arini took multiple images of Muhammad for
While many of those images were taken for Anadolu, photos and videos of starving children in Gaza also come from Palestinian journalists working for Reuters, The Associated Press, French international news agency AFP, The Guardian, The New York Times and other reputable outlets.
Israel has not allowed outside journalists into Gaza since its war with Hamas began. On July 24, 2025, the AP, AFP, BBC News and Reuters said in a joint statement that they "are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families."
"We once again urge the Israeli authorities to allow journalists in and out of Gaza," the statement said. "It is essential that adequate food supplies reach the people there."
Rachel O'Donoghue, the reporter on HonestReporting's story, said the images of Muhammad's "healthy" brother came from a wider set of photos filed to Getty Images. Snopes could not find these photos on Getty Images, nor have we independently verified the relationship between Muhammad and the boy depicted next to him.
WHO: 'Man-made mass starvation' in Gaza
Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed on July 27 that there is "no starvation in Gaza" while also blaming Hamas for intercepting humanitarian aid. (Both the U.S. government and Israeli military officials have reportedly found no evidence that Hamas routinely steals aid.)
But Israel's claims have been roundly refuted by overwhelming evidence of mass starvation in Gaza from aid workers, international organizations, peer-reviewed research — see Page 79 — independent experts and Palestinian journalists on the ground. The head of the United Nations' Palestinian refugee agency, Philippe Lazzarini, said on July 24 that the agency's latest findings show one in every five children in Gaza is malnourished.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on July 23 that Gaza is suffering human-made mass starvation caused by Israel's blockade.
More than 110 aid organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children and Amnesty International, signed an open letter on July 23 warning that "mass starvation spreads in Gaza."
"As the Israeli government's siege starves the people of Gaza, Palestine, aid workers are now joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families," the letter said. "With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organizations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes."
According to the U.N., more than 1,000 people have been killed and 7,000 injured while trying to access aid; Israeli forces routinely open fire on Palestinians seeking aid, according to witnesses and the Israeli military. Most deaths are linked to private aid hubs run by the U.S.-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the U.N. said.
IPC's July 29 famine alert said 1 in 3 people in Gaza goes without food for days at a time. "Latest data indicates that Famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City," IPC said.