Since July 19, when Hamas launched a campaign charging Israel with inflicting widespread starvation in the Gaza Strip, the attentive Western press corps has displayed an insatiable appetite for coverage of severe hunger in the war-torn coastal territory.
So great was the desire and passion to cover hunger in the Hamas-run territory that some media outlets completely jettisoned the bedrock journalistic value to “seek truth and report it,” unable to resist the temptation of falsely casting emaciated children suffering from severe underlying medical disorders as representative of starvation victims.
The New York Times, for instance, infamously featured one of these tragic but misrepresented cases, an article accompanied by a shocking above-the-fold, four-column photograph, on the front page of its July 25 edition, “Young, Old and Sick Starve to Death in Gaza: ‘There Is Nothing.’” The paper later was compelled to backtrack with an editor’s note acknowledging that toddler, Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, suffers from “pre-existing health problems.”
But that laser-sharp focus on undeniable hunger in the Gaza Strip remarkably dissipated in recent days when shocking new footage documenting emaciation emerged from the Hamas-controlled territory: horrific clips of Israeli hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski, deliberately starved and tortured by terror groups, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, respectively.
There was no front-page The New York Times article and photo for David and Braslavski. Instead, the paper of record relegated the two Israeli hostages, who unlike little Muhammad, do not suffer from any underlying medical conditions, to page 10. Even there, in that place of relative obscurity, the print edition did not deem a photograph necessary. Notably, too, The Times’ page-10 story omitted one of the most shocking elements of Hamas’ video of David, that the emaciated and severely abused captive was digging what he said was his own grave.
Buried coverage of the horrific hostage starvation videos is the latest, most blatant and jarring example of mainstream media erasing the hostages.
Notably, photos of emaciated Israeli hostages, subjected to cruelty beyond words with deliberate starvation and torture, do not serve the desired Hamas narrative, which the Western press corps both eagerly consumes and serves up to its vast audiences.
Hamas has articulated the requisite story and set it as a strategic goal. “Palestinian group Hamas on Saturday [July 19] urged the international community to ‘raise its voice and take to the streets’ in solidarity with Gaza and to denounce ‘Israel’s policy of starvation and genocide,’” Turkish media reported about the launch of the terror group’s propaganda campaign.
Western journalists dutifully obliged, and the flawed coverage alleging singular Israeli culpability for mass starvation in the Gaza Strip and highlighting appalling cases of emaciated individuals appeared at a dizzying pace.
On the Middle East news page at National Public Radio, for example, headlines are: “In Gaza, more Palestinians are killed while waiting for food aid,” Aug. 3; “More than 1,000 rabbis and Jewish leaders denounce starvation in Gaza,” heard on “Morning Edition,” Aug. 1; “A ‘worst-case scenario of famine’ is unfolding in Gaza, a U.N.-backed report finds,” July 29; “What reporting in Gaza shows amid Trump’s break with Netanyahu on starvation,” “Consider This” podcast, July 28; “His name is Mohammad al-Motawaq. He is 18 months old. And he is starving in Gaza,” July 27. That is just one single week of coverage.
Hamas released the horrific propaganda footage of the starving Evyatar David on July 31. Islamic Jihad released the devastating video of Rom Braslavski on July 30.
On Aug. 3, CAMERA contacted NPR pointing out that its news site still had not said a word about the hostage videos. It urged that the media outlet devote as much space to the two deliberately starved hostages, who suffer from no underlying medical conditions, as it has given to the toddler, who suffers from cerebral palsy, but whom the network falsely represented as representative of all of Gaza’s one million hungry children.
Also on Aug. 3, NPR’s then latest article highlighting food security problems in the Gaza Strip, completely omitted the starvation atrocity videos of Braslavski and David even as it discussed the hostages, “In Gaza, more Palestinians are killed while waiting for food aid,” obscuring:
In Tel Aviv, the families of hostages still held inside Gaza protested, urging the Israeli government to instead intensify efforts for a ceasefire for their loved ones’ release. ... Some family members met with [Steve] Witkoff, [President Donald] Trump’s Mideast envoy, during a visit he made to Tel Aviv. They said he had told them that Trump intends to seek a comprehensive hostage deal that would see Hamas agree to disarm and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commit to ending the war in Gaza.
On Aug. 4, NPR responded to CAMERA, promising “an updated version of the story [on al-Matouq] which will include more of the boy’s medical history as well as some of the developments that have happened since he came to the world’s attention.”
The same day, or four days and three days respectively after the clips of Rom and Evyatar emerged, NPR subsequently published an Associated Press story on the skeletal hostages, “Videos of emaciated hostages in Gaza raise pressure on Israel for a ceasefire.” Unlike its previous intensive coverage of earlier in the week, in which NPR tasked its own reporters with original coverage, NPR downgraded the hostages to warranting only a wire service story.
The Associated Press, for its part, was equally guilty of producing nothing more than crumbs of coverage in the immediate days following the release of the appalling hostage videos. The tardy Aug. 4 article was the AP’s first dedicated article to the hostage videos.
Readers could find kernels of coverage buried in earlier AP stories covering the larger story of Israeli culpability, such as Israeli Minister Itamar “Ben-Gvir’s visit to Jerusalem holy site sparks tensions as Israeli fire kills 33 seeking aid,” which recounted (Aug. 3):
Ben-Gvir visited [the Temple Mount] following Hamas’ release of videos showing two emaciated Israeli hostages. The videos caused an uproar in Israel and raised pressure on the government to reach a deal to bring home the remaining 50 hostages who were captured on Oct. 7, 2023, in the Hamas-led attack that triggered the war .... He raged against a video that Hamas released Saturday of 24-year-old hostage Evyatar David showing him emaciated in a dimly lit Gaza tunnel and called it an attempt to pressure Israel.
It’s not that AP was generally not attentive to starvation in the Gaza Strip. To the contrary, just like NPR, that same week, the wire service devoured the Hamas-fed storyline, producing robust coverage on malnutrition in the coastal territory with Israel as the culprit. AP’s bounty of coverage included “Photo Essay: Starvation attacks the body of these children in Gaza,” Aug. 1; “With growing urgency, more US Jews urge Israel to ensure ample food deliveries to Gaza,” Aug. 1; “‘Worst-case scenario of famine’ is happening in Gaza, food crisis experts warn,” July 29; “Israel begins daily pause in fighting in three Gaza areas to allow ‘minimal’ aid as hunger grows,” July 28; “Israel’s leader claims no one in Gaza is starving. Data and witnesses disagree,” July 28 and “The latest child to starve to death in Gaza weighed less than when she was born,” July 27; among countless other articles.
Agence France Presse was an early adapter of Hamas’ campaign, claiming on July 21 that its photojournalists were facing imminent death due to starvation. Yet supposedly dying photographers Bashar Taleb and Omar Al-Qattaa were subsequently spotted in full photography gear, looking well-nourished and crisscrossing the coastal territory to shoot scenes.
To its credit, AFP nevertheless quickly covered the horrific video of David, “Hamas armed wing publishes video Of Gaza hostage,” Aug. 1.
But subsequent AFP coverage reported without challenge Hamas propaganda that the hostages live under the same conditions as the rest of Gaza’s population, stating in the piece “Security Council to meet on Gaza hostages: Israel ambassador”:
“The Al-Qassam Brigades said it did ‘not intentionally starve’ the hostages, but they would not receive any special food privileges ‘amid the crime of starvation and siege’ in Gaza.”
In his memoir, “Hostages,” (to be released in English on Oct. 7), former hostage Eli Sharabi recounts that his well-nourished captors fed him the same lie even as they deliberately starved him.
Earlier this year, the Associated Press used this Hamas trick, merging the unparalleled plight of the hostages into the general misery of the surrounding population.
“The hostages often experience the same dire circumstances as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, whether it be food scarcity, the dangers from Israeli bombardments or the winter,” intoned AP’s Tia Goldenberg on Jan. 8, 2025.
Reuters, in contrast, this week commendably countered Hamas propaganda that Israeli hostages live under the same conditions as their captors, “Hamas says it will allow aid for hostages if Israel stops its airstrikes, opens permanent humanitarian corridors”:
On Saturday, Hamas released its second video in two days of Israeli hostage Evyatar David. In it, David, skeletally thin, is shown digging a hole that, he says in the video, is for his own grave. The arm of the individual holding the camera, which can be seen in the frame, is a regular width.
Released hostage Tal Shoham, who was held together with David and hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal in that pictured tunnel, recounts that their Hamas captors feast on plenty of food just meters from that spot, and enjoy TV, air conditioning and more.
Medical experts who examined the horrific starvation videos estimate that David lost more than 40% of his body weight; Braslavski reportedly lost 31% of his weight, and both face “immediate risk of death” due to “systematic starvation,” the medical experts say.
The Israeli hostages are literally wasting away. And the media can’t erase their presence fast enough.
