The world witnessed a case that illustrates how the most powerful images can hide more than they reveal. The photographs of Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, a demacrated Palestinian child, appeared on the covers of the main international media, from the New York Times to the BBC, from CNN to politician.
The shocking images of Muhammad Zakariya became the face of a human tragedy and a devastating accusation: Israel was deliberately killing children in Gaza. Even the inflexible Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was under pressure and retreated, allowing international help.
However, it is now known that the image hid crucial information.
According to British research journalist David Collier, Mohammed suffers from cerebral palsy. Collier recovered a report from a local beneficial organization of May 2025 that mentions its condition. CNN, in one of its transmissions, said Mohammed suffered a “muscle disorder”, but in later reports he omitted that key fact.
All journalism students review the art of “note approach” in media schools. The ideological positions of a medium are revealed not only by what they publish, but also for what they do not disseminate. While everyone published the image of Mohammed, with the bones and ribs protruding from their fragile body; Another image of the child with his mother and his older brother did not appear in any medium.
The Israeli journalist Eitan Fischberger, wrote on the Wall Street Journal that the reason why everyone ignored the second image was that in that photo, both the mother and Mohammed’s brother look healthy. That image did not support the narrative of an imminent famine in Gaza.
Mohammed’s herself revealed that her son suffers from rare muscle disorder and receives specialized nutrition and physiotherapy for her condition. Cogat, the Israeli military unit that coordinates humanitarian aid to Gaza, also documented another similar case with Osama Al-Raqab, who suffers from cystic fibrosis. Israel transferred him by plane to Italy to receive treatment. The New York Times issued a clarification on July 30, 2025:
“Children in Gaza are malnourished and die of hunger, as documented by journalists from the New York Times and others. We recently publish a story about the most vulnerable civilians of Gaza, including Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, approximately 18 months to add context about your pre -existing health problems. “
But there is a revealing detail: while the image of Mohammed with the headline “famine” went to the NYT print cover, the clarification appeared only on Twitter and on the digital page.
This situation reminds us that a picture is worth a thousand words, but it doesn’t always tell the truth. In the annals of photojournalism, there were many iconic images that changed our way of seeing the war and the world that surrounds us.
The monk on fire, an emblematic image of 1963 taken by Michael Browne, showed the act of autoimmaging of a Vietnamese monk as an extreme form of protest against the Saigon government supported by the United States. The monk, immolating in total calm, created an image as shocking as disturbing that attracted worldwide attention to the Vietnam War.
Almost a decade later, the atrocities committed by US troops in Vietnam were denounced. It was an image of a group of Vietnamese children fleeing a Napalm attack, and a nine -year -old girl crying naked. The image promoted the antiibelic movement in the United States.
Perhaps one of the most iconic images in the history of photojournalism is The vulture and the girlof South African photojournalist Kevin Carter. The image showed the absolute devastation of the famine in Sudan in 1993: a familical Sudanese girl, trying to reach a food center, closely observed by a vulture. The image earned Carter the Pulitzer award, but the experience had a very high cost in his mental health, and the following year he committed suicide.
In more recent times, the death of Alan Kurdi, a three -year -old Syrian child who lay lifeless on a Turkish beach, attracted worldwide attention to the drama of Syrian refugees. According to a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in the week after the publication of the image, donations for Syrian refugees fired. The Swedish Red Cross campaign received a daily average of 55 times higher donations (about $ 214,300) compared to the previous week ($ 3,850).
“Tragic images rightly awaken intense emotions,” says Cogat. “But when they are badly used, to feed hatred and lie, they do more damage than good.”
None of this means that Gaza is free of suffering. Indeed, the condition is so great that it cannot be described in words, even with images. But this does not justify that journalists or media do a bad job and present false or misleading images.
In such polarized times, there is an even greater need to accurately communicate the context. As the problem summarizes: “The world sees a photo of a child suffering, assumes what the editor wants me to assume, and then share it without asking questions. The context disappears.”
However, these powerful images can also be manipulated or presented to boost a specific agenda. What the proverb about the thousand words does not say is whether those words tell the truth or build a false narrative.
Things as they are
Mookie Tenembaum addresses international issues like this every week with Horacio Cabak in his podcast the international observer, available in Spotify, Apple, YouTube and all platforms.
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