Image of Gazan child with genetic illness being used to falsely smear Israel, COGAT charges

A widely circulated image of an emaciated Palestinian child has been used to falsely accuse Israel of starving children in Gaza, charged the Defense Ministry body overseeing civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories on Monday, as Israel continued to combat accusations of having deliberately starved the population of the Gaza Strip.

According to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the subject of the viral photo, 5-year-old Osama al-Rakab, suffers from a serious genetic illness that is unrelated to the ongoing war, and is currently undergoing treatment abroad.

On June 12, Israeli authorities coordinated his exit from Gaza via the Ramon airport, along with his mother and brother, and he is receiving medical treatment in Italy, COGAT said.

“Tragic images rightfully stir strong emotions, but when they’re misused to fuel hatred and lies, they do more harm than good,” read a statement on COGAT’s English-language X account. “Don’t let compassion be exploited for propaganda. Check the facts before parroting blame.”

The statement did not address broader reports of widespread food scarcity and malnutrition in Gaza, and instead focused on correcting what it said was a specific misuse of a personal tragedy for misinformation.

In a similar instance, freelance investigative journalist David Collier presented what he said was evidence to debunk another viral image intended to depict famine in the Gaza Strip.

The image, which was widely shared by international media outlets in recent days, shows Hidaya Yassin al-Mutawaq holding the skeletal body of her son, Mohammed al-Mutawaq.

According to Collier, the outrage sparked by this image was unprovoked, as Mohammed has serious genetic disorders and has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Furthermore, he asserted, the widely shared image is cropped in a way that removes Mohammed’s younger, healthier-looking brother from the frame.

By withholding pertinent information about the young child’s complex medical needs, Collier claimed, media outlets were “deliberately pushing a deceptive narrative that only serves to benefit Hamas and create fake news.”

However, as Collier himself acknowledged that Mohammed “has needed specialist medical supplements since birth,” it is highly likely that he is, indeed, suffering unnecessarily due to the limited aid flow into Gaza, as medical equipment is in short supply and the Strip’s health system has all but collapsed.

The reports of an increasingly dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip — including reportedly growing levels of severe, acute malnutrition, and children dying by starvation — led Jerusalem on Sunday to declare that it would enforce a “tactical” pause in military operations in densely populated areas of Gaza, along with several other changes, to allow for the safe distribution of humanitarian aid.

At the same time, it has denied that it is using hunger as a weapon of war, and instead accuses the United Nations and other aid agencies of failing to pick up and distribute supplies delivered to Gaza’s border crossing points.

COGAT, therefore, appeared to credit increased UN cooperation, rather than Israel’s newly eased restrictions, as the reason for more than 120 truckloads of aid having been distributed by the UN and aid agencies across Gaza on Sunday.

“Over 120 trucks were collected and distributed yesterday by the UN and international organizations,” it said on X. “An additional 180 trucks entered Gaza and are now awaiting collection and distribution, along with hundreds of others still queued for UN pickup.”

“More consistent collection and distribution by UN agencies and international organizations equals more aid reaching those who need it most in Gaza,” COGAT added.

Although the number of trucks entering the Strip is still far short of the roughly 500 aid trucks that would enter each day before the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel, which launched the ongoing war, Gazans have nevertheless welcomed them and the lifesaving supplies that they carry.

“For the first time, I received about five kilos of flour, which I shared with my neighbor,” said 37-year-old Jamil Safadi, who shelters with his wife, six children and a sick father in a tent near the Al-Quds hospital in Tel al-Hawa, Gaza City.

Safadi, who has been up before dawn each day for two weeks searching for food, said Monday was his first success. Other Gazans were less fortunate; some complained aid trucks had been stolen or that guards had fired at them near US- and Israel-backed aid centers.

“I saw injured and dead people. People have no choice but to try daily to get flour. What entered from Egypt was very limited,” said 33-year-old Amir al-Rash, still without food and living in a tent.

His account appeared to be backed up by the Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat, central Gaza, which said in a statement that one person was killed and nine others were wounded when Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians waiting for aid.

It was unclear which organization was handing out aid at the site of the reported shooting, although reports of mass-casualty events near sites operated by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation have become a near-daily occurrence.

The GHF’s operations have been under intense scrutiny since its opening in late May, and the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says that more than 1,000 people have been killed near its aid sites in that time.

Israel, which accuses Hamas of hoarding aid, has accused the terror group of attacking Gazan aid seekers near GHF sites and falsifying death tolls.

The IDF says that its soldiers only fire “warning shots” to control the crowds, though it has admitted that its fire has killed “several” Palestinians at aid sites.

In addition to the latest reported aid site shooting and despite the limited pauses in fighting across the Strip, more than 30 people were said to have been killed in Israeli airstrikes overnight and into Monday morning.

According to Arabic media reports, 15 people were killed in strikes overnight, and a strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis on Monday morning was said to have killed another 15 people.

Three others were killed in a strike on an apartment Al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza, the Qatari Al-Araby news outlet reported.

The death toll couldn’t be verified and there was no immediate comment from the IDF.

The latest deaths in the Strip came as B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights published a report accusing Israel of carrying out genocide in the Gaza Strip, becoming the first major Israeli human rights organizations to make the charge.

“An examination of Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip,” read a statement accompanying the report. “In other words: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

Israel has consistently and vehemently denied that it is committing genocide, including in an ongoing case at the International Court of Justice. The Israel Defense Forces says that it takes extensive measures not to harm civilians in Gaza, and accuses Hamas of using Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 58,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 456.