The New York Times Puts An Asterisk On A Starving Child

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Last week The New York Times ran a story titled “Gazans Are Dying of Starvation.” The gist of the story was simple: there is a hunger crisis in Gaza. The piece covers the broad politics of the situation, and describes the circumstances of several Gazan children. It largely defers on the question of who is responsible. The U.N. and various aid groups, it says, claim Israel is limiting aid into Gaza; Israel denies it, claiming Hamas is diverting aid. But the story also states some unmistakable realities, like the fact that hunger in Gaza exists in the shadow of Israel’s 80-day blockade this Spring.

On Tuesday night an uproar ensued from both ends of the political spectrum after the Times, apparently at the behest of the Israeli consulate, issued a sort of correction. Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, one of the children covered (and photographed) in the story, has a pre-existing medical condition affecting his muscle development that was not disclosed in the piece. The Times made a public statement and amended the story to reference Mohammed’s condition.

First things first, a small correction was likely warranted for one reason: the piece had previously said that Mohammed was “born a healthy child,” which seems to have been inaccurate. But the substance of the story is still correct. Gaza is in fact starving, or more accurately it is being starved. Mohammed is starving, which the Times’ statement acknowledges. 

The fact that the Times made a public spectacle of its amended story is of note here. The Times often issues several corrections per day without any comment. The move read less like a sincere attempt to correct the record and more like an act of political contrition.

And yet, pro-Israeli media has seized onto the incident as if it displayed the Times’ anti-Israel bias. The New York Post said that the Times had “stunningly roll[ed] back” its claims about Mohammed. The Jerusalem Post ran a headline saying that the Times “quietly alter[ed]” its story – a headline that itself borders on disinformation, as the Times publicly announced its correction on social media. The Israeli consulate said that “[i]t’s unfortunate that the international media repeatedly falls for Hamas propaganda.”

For the Israeli state, these PR tactics are common. Israel’s official Twitter/X account has made several posts purporting to debunk media accounts of starving Palestinians. One of them, concerning an infant featured in some recent news coverage, claims “11-month-old Sila Barbakh isn’t starving — he suffers from a pre-existing chronic gastrointestinal illness, unrelated to the war.” No source is provided, nor is it explained what the ostensible illness actually is, nor how Israeli officials have somehow determined that this child is not starving. 

The point of this messaging isn’t to meaningfully dispute the facts on the ground in Gaza. The point is to foment among Israel’s supporters the idea that no piece of media sympathetic to Palestinians can be trusted.

If we are to situate ourselves in reality, the fact that the most medically vulnerable in Gaza are the first to suffer isn’t a gotcha, it’s inevitable. Those who need more resources to survive are more susceptible to deprivation. It’s the truth of every famine that has ever occurred.

But the argument being proffered by Israeli officials, and tacitly accepted by The New York Times, is that a Palestinian child’s pre-existing illness frees the Israeli state from some moral culpability. As if a sick child starving to death is a natural thing, or as if there was some contradiction between Mohammed’s illness and the fact that he is being denied food.

Recent months have seen pronounced shifts in public opinion on Israel’s actions in Gaza. Shortly after October 7th, Americans approved of the Israeli response by a small margin, 50-45. Now they disapprove 60-32. American politicians are shifting course: last night over half of the Senate Democratic caucus voted against offensive arms sales to Israel.

As the situation in Gaza worsens, pro-Israeli messaging veers into absurdity. It is rife with internal contradictions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that “there is no starvation in Gaza,” but just a few days prior Israeli spokesman David Mencer seemed to say that there was a famine, but that it was “a man-made shortage engineered by Hamas.” (The New York Times recently reported that according to multiple Israeli military officials, there’s no proof that Hamas was systematically stealing United Nations aid). 

That the medical condition of Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq is even a subject of dispute is an absurdity. It weighs nothing against the fact that by conservative estimates, 1 in every 36 people in Gaza has been killed, and nearly two million people displaced. It does nothing to change the fact that a famine is being deliberately manufactured. 

What we see from the pro-Israel press is similar to what we see in right-wing American media: less of a coherent narrative and more a series of talking points with only a loose correlation to fact. The goal is not to put forth a case as much as it is to build an alternate reality that your supporters can opt into. 

The New York Times is trying to operate with one foot in both realities – a world where Gaza is being starved but special credence must be given to Israeli counternarratives. That’s not tenable. You can’t partially commit to the truth.

For a long time, the media has been able to present the situation in Gaza as a tale of competing narratives. But as the distance grows between the story being sold by Netanyahu’s government and the obvious truth, the Times and everyone else will be forced to choose which one they want to accept. It’s facts or propaganda; reality or complicity.