The NY Times admits that emaciated Gazan boys had “existing health problems” on the front page.

The New York Times published a correction on Tuesday after publishing a emaciated child on the front page last week to illustrate the widespread hunger in Gaza, without realizing that the boy suffers from health problems that deal before the ongoing war.

“Children in Gaza are malnourished and hungry, as reporters of the New York Times and others have documented,” said the newspaper in a written explanation. “We recently achieved a story about Gazas the strongest endangered civilians, including Mohammad Zakaria el-mutawaq, who is about 18 months old and suffers from severe malnutrition.

“Since then we have learned new information, including the hospital that dealt with him and his medical documents and updated our history to add a context of his existing health problems. This additional detail gives readers a better understanding of his situation,” it said.

The article that accompanied the photo online was added to a correction. The explanation was published on X on the PR account of the New York Times, which has around 89,000 supporters. It was not published on the main New York Times account with 55 million.

The photo that dominated the front page of the Times on Friday shows how the boy is visibly malnourished in the arms of his mother Hidaya. After her caption, she told the newspaper that Mohammed was “born healthy, but was recently diagnosed with severe malnutrition”.

Get the times of the daily edition of Israel
By e -mail and never miss our top stories

By registering, they agree with the conditions

Pictures of Al-Mutawaq also appeared in Sky News, The Guardian, The Daily Mail and The Times of London with similar capatitions, some of which-in one way of the online edition of the New York Times-Use, claimed that “Mohammed’s father was killed last year when he was looking for Essen”.

Hidaya, a 31-year-old Palestinian mother, weighs her sick 18-month-old son Mohammed al-Mutawaq on July 24, 2025 in her tent in the Al Shati refugee west west of the city of Gaza. (Omar al-Qattaa / AFP)

A picture of the child in his mother’s arms also occupied the entire front page of the newspaper Daily Express in Great Britain with the heading last week: “From the sake of heaven, the suffering of Little Muhammad, which adheres to life in Gaza, hell.”

On Tuesday, the New York Times confirmed in its updated article that “Mohammed had already had existing health problems, which has already had existing health problems that affect his brain and muscle development”.

“But,” remarked the newspaper, “his health has deteriorated quickly in the past few months because it has become increasingly difficult to find food and medical care, and the medical clinic that treated him said he suffered from serious malnutrition.”

Today’s title page:

(Article contains stressful content) https://t.co/uhw1kqcxxa @Expressgilo #dailyexpress #gaza pic.twitter.com/ykkgeatav22

– Daily Express (@daily_express) July 23, 2025

The correction was carried out after the freelance investigative journalist David Collier reported on Monday on his website that in a medical report by Gaza in May 2025 it was found that brain paralysis was diagnosed in Mohammed and suffering from hypoxemia, which may have been associated with a suspected genetic disorder.

In his article, Collier also noticed that other photos from the same sentences used by large branches showed Mohammed’s mother and his older brother, which seem to be of normal weight.

In contrast to his brother, who is at his side, Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq suffers from cerebral palsy.

But BBC, CNN, Daily Express and the New York Times spread a misleading story with a picture of a sick, disabled child to promote a narrative of the mass rental in Gaza -… pic.twitter.com/dfkwqks13i

– Israel Foreign Ministry (@israelmfa) July 29, 2025

However, Collier himself admitted that Mohammed has “needed specialized medical nutrients” since birth, which has been pointed out that he is probably also suffering from the limited auxiliary current in Gaza strip, since medical equipment briefly and the health system of the strip has almost broken in.

Reporter challenges claim that Boy’s father has died to search for food

Collier also questioned the claim in some caps that “Mohammed’s father was killed last year when he searched for Essen”.

Collier said he identified the boy’s father as Zakaria Ayoub al-Mutawaq, who was killed on October 28, 2024 together with three others in the Al-Qassabeb Street in Jabalia by Northern Gaza in an attack by the Israeli defense forces.

The death of the older al-mutawaq came within a few days after a video that aimed from the group’s employees on Israeli soldiers on the same street. In the area, six Israeli troops were killed with the clip during a four -day period.

It was not immediately clear whether there was evidence that overlooked the older al-mutawaq with the boy about her mutual surname.

In the past few months, almost daily incidents have been reported on the strip, in which Palestinians who are looking for help with the aids were sometimes killed by Israeli fire, which the military has portrayed as a mass control test. However, Israeli ground troops only founded in May 2025 near aid sites.

Clouds of smoke in the north, while the Palestinians move their loads through Jabalia, while on May 19, 2025 they flee in front of the northern Gaza Strip towards Gaza town, in the middle of the Israeli evacuation commands and ongoing strikes. (Bashar Taleb / AFP)

On Monday, The Times of London published an article about Collier’s story, although he neither supported nor rejected his results.

Neither Sky News nor the Guardian or the Daily Mail had added corrections to their articles on Wednesday.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who reacted to the correction of the New York Times, accused the newspaper of deliberately spreading a “blood defamation” on Tuesday evening.

“It’s just incredible,” he wrote. “After the boy has created a tsunami of hatred of Israel with this terrible picture, they knew that the boy was already there.

Collier’s article came as Israel that another widespread image of a emaciated Palestinian child was used to incorrectly accused Israel of the hungry children in Gaza.

The picture in question was from 5-year-old Osama Al-Rakab, who suffers from a serious genetic illness and left treatment abroad on the Gaza on June 12 with the consent of Israel.

The 5-year-old Osama Al-Rakab receives medical treatment. Cogat says that a viral picture of him, on the right, incorrectly accused Israel of the starving children in Gaza. (Screen recording: Cogat via X)

The classification of the integrated phase of integrated integration integrated phase of the phase of phase of the phase of famine on Tuesday that the “worst-case scenario is currently playing famine in the Gaza Strip”, whereby the “widespread death” predicts without immediate measure.

Two days earlier, in view of the situation, Israel had started to pause all fights in large parts of the strip for 10 hours a day and at the same time facilitate a tool through land and air.

From March to May of this year, Israel blocked all humanitarian aid through the entry into the stripes, including food and medicine.

At that time, Jerusalem estimated that there had been enough help up to several months and said that sending would strengthen the Hamas terrorist group more.

Since the end of this blockade, Israel has rely on the humanitarian foundation based in the United States and Israel. According to Hamas authorities, almost daily fatal shootings near GHF locations killed more than 1,000 people. The IDF says that the number is exaggerated.