When he was in elementary school, my younger brother was bullied mercilessly by a classmate. The bully picked on his clothing, his weight, his performance on the playground, and anything else he felt like on any given day. It wasn't until my brother got fed up, socked the bully in the gut, and knocked him down a grassy hill at the playground that the harassment finally stopped. Permanently.
This was in the 1990s, before the concept of 'woke' nonsense infiltrated our schools, so my brother didn't get in trouble for this. Today? He'd be the one facing suspension or expulsion for failing to 'talk it out' with his bully. Instead, he was able to send a clear message with physical force: You will never mess with me again.
I won't go through the long history of Hamas and other Islamic terror groups waging war against Israel; that's not the point here. October 7, 2023, was the worst loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, and it crossed a red line. Since then, Israel has fought back against the terrorist bullies who seek to wipe it off the map.
For that, it's been met with condemnation from the usual suspects. The anti-Israel Left, and a faction of the anti-Israel Right, demanded a 'proportional' response (as if there's such a thing when barbarians parachuted into a peaceful music festival to rape, burn, and murder thousands -- including infants and entire families). As the war has continued, they've parroted debunked death numbers from the 'Gaza Ministry of Health,' which is really just a mouthpiece for Hamas.
They accuse Israel of committing 'genocide' in Gaza, even though all the evidence contradicts those claims.
And now, they are pivoting to claims that Israel is starving the children of Gaza.
If Israel were, I'd be among the voices condemning them. Children are the most innocent victims of war.
Except there's a problem: the pictures and videos of starving children being circulated, while not fake, are also not of starving children. They're of children who are very sick for reasons unrelated to the war:
A photo of 5-year-old Osama al-Rakab has gone viral, used to falsely depict Israel as responsible for his condition, claiming Israel is starving children.#TheFacts: Osama suffers from a serious genetic illness unrelated to the war. On June 12, we actively coordinated Osama's… pic.twitter.com/7IY826P0JZ
— COGAT (@cogatonline) July 28, 2025
The entire post reads:
#TheFacts: Osama suffers from a serious genetic illness unrelated to the war. On June 12, we actively coordinated Osama's exit from Gaza with his mother and brother through the Ramon airport. He is now receiving treatment in Italy.
Tragic images rightfully stir strong emotions, but when they’re misused to fuel hatred and lies, they do more harm than good. Don’t let compassion be exploited for propaganda. Check the facts before parroting blame.
As you can see from the picture on the left, young Osama looks much healthier after receiving necessary treatment in Italy. Treatment coordinated by Israel, mind you.
Another picture of a 'starving' child, Mohammed, also went viral. He, too, is medically fragile and not a victim of starvation:
Exclusive:
— David Collier (@mishtal) July 27, 2025
This is not the face of famine. It is the face of a medically vulnerable child whose tragic situation was hijacked and weaponised.
Exposing the truth behind the viral Gaza 'famine' image of Mohammed Al-Matouq. 1/13
🧵⬇️⬇️⬇️ pic.twitter.com/IUAHmdoVDb
Mohammed has cerebral palsy, hypoxemia (a lower than normal blood oxygen level), and a genetic disorder. His older brother and mother were photographed, too:
Let me just start with other images the media chose not to use. Photographs of Mohammed with his 3-year-old brother Joud. Both mother and brother are healthy and fed.
— David Collier (@mishtal) July 27, 2025
Any honest journalist should have immediately questioned – and reported - what we were actually seeing. 3/13 pic.twitter.com/FaUsVFsqb2
CNN used a video of a child the network admitted had a muscular disorder as more evidence of the famine crisis:
CNN speaks of a famine in Gaza, while simultaneously admitting to using a video of a child with muscle disorder.
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) July 27, 2025
How is this journalism? https://t.co/RKlwHimUgw
And a Turkish media outlet stole video from a neonatal Facebook account, claiming it was a child 'too starved' to cry:
Starvation in Gaza leaves a baby too weak to cry. pic.twitter.com/UuIuQtmEvF
— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 25, 2025
On October 6, 2023, there was no war in Gaza. There was no need for U.N. food trucks or aid airdrops. Children weren't starving, and they certainly weren't starving because of Israel (and they're not starving because of Israel now).
The U.N. has sat on, quite literally, tons of aid -- demanding Israel protect the aid deliveries while simultaneously prohibiting the IDF from accompanying the convoys. At the same time, they condemn airdrops of aid as 'dangerous.'
This reminds me quite a bit of the Democratic Party lying, continuously, about state anti-abortion laws. Like the starving children in Gaza, the Left has to make up victims of laws they don't like to 'prove' that those laws they don't like are dangerous. If those anti-abortion laws were harmful, they'd be able to find actual victims.
In the same vein, if there were starving children in Gaza, the media wouldn't have to use misleading pictures of children who are sick from other causes to advance their anti-Israel narrative. And that's what this is about: putting international pressure on Israel to end the war.
So that Hamas can have a few years to regroup and launch yet another attack on the Jewish homeland, and this cycle can repeat itself again.
I don't doubt that living in a war-torn nation is hard, and that children -- and others -- are suffering. But I bristle at the hubris it takes to lie about starving children to advance an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish narrative.
I also place the blame on all of this squarely where it belongs: on the people who started this war.
That's Hamas. They chose to attack Israeli civilians, and they decided to keep launching rockets at Israel, often sacrificing infrastructure and the safety of innocent Gazans in the process. Now that their victims are punching them back in the metaphorical nose, they're trying to play the victim.
And they're not above lying about children to do it.
Then again, they weren't above killing children to start it, either.
