A photograph to stop you in your tracks

[MsAmerica]

This was on the front page of the New York Times, as attention-getting as they come.
“Gazans are dying of starvation”
Photograph by Saher Alghorra.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DMmGar4MEr_/

Very sad photo - the child's name is Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq. He was born with a genetic condition. Notice that his mother is not skeletal - she is not even particularly thin. What kind of famine is it that well-fed adults are photographed holding very thin children?
Who eats when their children are hungry?
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-31/controversy-over-image-of-a-skeletal-one-year-old-gazan-boy/105596198

RosaMundi is correct, this child has a serious health condition.

This is what actual starvation looks like.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DMyNp-AOl7h/?igsh=aDliOWlhbHhidDUx

Bring them home!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMycpuPRNLR/?igsh=dDI0eHVoNWpmdmgz

Adults have more excess fat than children. We can go for weeks without food. Children cannot. That is why they look skeletal long before the adults. To try to deny what is happening to those poor people in Gaza is utterly despicable and evil. I cannot believe this is where we are.

Get to absolute fuck with your shameless support of genocidal starvation. May whatever god you believe in judge you accordingly.

You must be aware that children starve faster than adults? What a ridiculous response. Do you really think this mother was starving her child while making sure she herself ate plenty? One of those posts that renders everything null that's written by that writer I think.

The Israeli government, and those who support them are as despicable as Hamas and their supporters.

The majority of the respective civilian populations seem to be right minded and condemn the actions of the leaderships of both countries.

I'm aware that children show signs of malnourishment quicker than adults, but so far I have not seen a single underweight Gazan adult, and many are obese. There was another photo circulating which shows a skeletal child, but in the same photograph is another child of similar age and of normal body weight - how does that happen in a famine? Seriously, what is your explanation?

It is clear that the mother is small. Who can really see how thin and wasted she is beneath her clothes. She is absolutely not my definition of a "well fed", well nourished adult and I very much doubt that she is.

You have to be taking the Mickey.

This Posts makes me feel sick,

Get off Israeli propaganda sites

This is Mumsnet. Full of mums. We all know how babies need regular food or they lose weight shockingly fast. Babies are tiny and fragile and helpless and if they don’t get food then they die. Adults are far far far more robust. And all the adults deciding to starve these women and children should burn in hell for a million years.

@RosaMundi27 should go there and check. Practice getting some food. Actually have to face these starving people and walk away.

Me too. I can't believe it. Absolutely sickening.

Mumsnet needs to start banning the likesor RosaMundi or we might as well have Hamas on here.

Your saying, "Do you really think this mother was starving her child while making sure she herself ate plenty?" reminded of a documentary on television last week where a Palestinian father had managed to score some food aid, and said he only had a spoonful himself and gave the rest to his family.

Thank you for saying pretty much what I think, but which seems a rare attitude - both sides are despicable.