German foreign minister says Gaza is enduring 'famine'

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are suffering through "famine," German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said in an interview with national public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk.

 

"We have been observing for some time that the blockade that Israeli has in practice imposed on the Gaza Strip has led to famine, has led to people dying, suffering and going thirsty," Wadephul said in an interview conducted on Friday during his return flight to Germany from a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

 

Wadephul called for the UN's aid organizations and the Red Cross, along with religious and charitable organizations to be given full access to the war-ravaged region. "This could start tomorrow," he said, calling for a "fundamental change" in Israeli policy.

  

German foreign minister says Gaza is enduring 'famine'

The mathematics of starvation: how Israel caused a famine in Gaza

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/31/the-mathematics-of-starvation-how-israel-caused-a-famine-in-gaza

 

Between March and June, Israel allowed just 56,000 tonnes of food to enter the territory, Cogat records show, less than a quarter of Gaza’s minimum needs for that period.

 

Even if every bag of UN flour had been collected and handed out, and the GHF had developed safe systems for equitable distribution, starvation was inevitable. Palestinians did not have enough to eat.

 

Israel’s government knows how much food Gaza’s people need to survive, and how much food goes into the territory, and in the past used that data to calculate how much food was needed to avoid starvation.

 

 

 

 

Picture is AI BS. Hamas has to choose between being destroyed or doing the right thing for their people, disarming, and letting the West Bank Palestinian Authorities take over Gaza... or everyone gets killed. Terrorist governments cannot be allowed to survive, as they will only fester and become insidious again over time. Give it (Gaza) all to the West Bank authorities to manage and there might be a better outcome... Hamas is finished, and rightly so.

1 hour ago, Mike_Hunt said:

The only photo of the "famine" is a kid who suffers from cerebral palsy.  Why do you people always fall for the propaganda from Gaza?  

 

If they had a bunch of kids dying from famine, the photos would be shown all over the world. 

 

 

Here are the details:

The New York Times included on July 29, 2025, the following paragraph at the end of a story ("Gazans Are Dying of Starvation") originally published July 24, 2025:

 

"Editors’ Note:   July 29, 2025  This article has been updated to include information about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child in Gaza suffering from severe malnutrition. After publication of the article, The Times  learned from his doctor that Mohammed also had pre-existing health problems. "  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/world/middleeast/gaza-starvation.html

 

That's a pretty wimpy correction.  The crucial point is the child in the photo had had trouble swallowing food since birth.  That's very tragic and his health condition has certainly been aggravated by supply shortages caused by Hamas' attack on Israel and refusal to cease hostilities, but it doesn't indicate there is famine or starvation in Gaza.

 

The NYT and a number of news outlets had used a photo or photos similar to the one in the OP of this thread.  What the photos have in common is the prominence of the child's backbone to emphasize thinness.  In the pic below a garbage bag is used as a makeshift diaper,  putting more attention on the child's wretched situation.

 

 

 

The NYT didn't run the info about his underlying health condition in the original story, nor did they publish the following photo that includes the boy's three-year-old brother who doesn't appear to be suffering from starvation.

 

 

You can read  the entire expose in detail on the site of independent journalist David Collier.

The Truth Behind the Viral Gazan Famine Photo

This isn’t the face of famine. It’s the face of a medically vulnerable child whose suffering was hijacked and weaponised – first by Hamas, then by global media.   

https://david-collier.com/the-truth-behind-the-viral-gaza-famine-photo/

 

I'll follow up with information about another misleading photo of a malnourished child in Gaza.

 

 

 

This is the current looped video that illustrates The NYT story from July 24.

 

I doubt very much that's an authentic recording of the child crying.  The caption reads:  "Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, about 18 months old, being held by his mother, Hedaya al-Mutawaq, 31. They and his brother live in a tent on a Gaza beach. Mohammed’s father was killed last year when he went to seek food."

 

According to the expose by David Collier (https://david-collier.com/the-truth-behind-the-viral-gaza-famine-photo/), Mohammed's father may have been a Hamas operative killed in a targeted strike.

 

2 hours ago, Mike_Hunt said:

The only photo of the "farne" is a kid who suffers from cerebral palsy.  Why do you people always fall for the propaganda from Gaza?  

 

If they had a bunch of kids dying from famine, the photos would be shown all over the world. 

 

Arabs are garbage lying people. 

 

 

 

Hamas are masters of playing the victim, useful idiots in the west suck it up without even thinking if the propaganda has any truth to it at all, the starving kiddies  pics are all fake.

 The Media and a lot of folks forget who started this war on Oct. 7!! Now Hamas is still holding 55+ hostages and Food as leverage to remain in "POWER!"

Now might be a good time to give those hostages back….

https://scontent-mia3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/527330688_580125688513943_8945449195567181429_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=siAS6gqCkwsQ7kNvwFTuub3&_nc_oc=AdkdeNmhjnvtsQhqdGhKI7N_0pjjh-4YOk9bXfR1i1BxGCDvkZKn5PB_wSf26LQVekQ&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-mia3-1.xx&_nc_gid=qvIsvlDiEJt14jv_6hf4wg&oh=00_AfUhs7LslPRuOcteIgCxGx-d1OBDbhHUjWv0igBlPAZdmw&oe=6895EB7A

Time to dismantle Israel as a country, create one Palestine, the sale of IDF military hardware can fund the emigration of Israelis (the ones not arrested on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity) if they so wish, UN boots on the ground and democratic elections within 5-10 years. 🙂

 

 

You made your own destiny.  Complain to Hamas and rich muslim oil countries, NOT the west.

17 hours ago, Chris.C said:

You deny starvation, do you say all these Aid Agencies are wrong? 
Simple yes or no.

Have you considered that you are trusting what

says is true?

2 hours ago, klauskunkel said:

Have you considered that you are trusting what

says is true?

What in my picture is not true?

What is wrong with Niz Mhani?

14 hours ago, Dan747 said:

 The Media and a lot of folks forget who started this war on Oct. 7!! Now Hamas is still holding 55+ hostages and Food as leverage to remain in "POWER!"

Israel started this war on Oct 8th. The Israel UN Ambassador said he other day.

What about Operation Shield and Arrow, May 2023.

15 hours ago, proton said:

the starving kiddies  pics are all fake

You are deluded, you think you know better than over 100 aid agencies,  including Oxfam, Savethechildren, UN, Amnesty.

And 2 liked your vile post.

17 hours ago, Sir Dude said:

Picture is AI BS. Hamas has to choose between being destroyed or doing the right thing for their people, disarming, and letting the West Bank Palestinian Authorities take over Gaza... or everyone gets killed. Terrorist governments cannot be allowed to survive, as they will only fester and become insidious again over time. Give it (Gaza) all to the West Bank authorities to manage and there might be a better outcome... Hamas is finished, and rightly so.

Agreed. (1) Hamas is a vile organization whose sole purpose is the destruction of Israel (an obviously unachievable goal); and (2) Israel was born out of the trauma of the Holocaust and was immediately attacked by its neighbors, so we can grant Israel the benefit of the doubt with respect to its self-defense.

 

That said, regardless of whether the pictures are AI generated or not, aid agencies have almost unanimously attested to starvation in Gaza, and beyond that, Israel continues to kill civilians, starving or not, at alarming rates. Gazans’ support for Hamas is tanking; most polling shows it at less than 40%, so most of those being killed are not Hamas supporters. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers in the West Bank continue to terrorize their Palestinian Arab neighbors. Claims of genocide seem valid to me.

 

So the Netanyahu government is nearly as atrocious as Hamas. Your solution, to grant governance of Gaza to the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority, seems the most logical way out. The Palestinian Authority (not Hamas) represents Palestine at the UN, and some Western countries are now moving to recognize Palestinian independence, so these are very positive steps that may put some pressure on Israel to consider other solutions. Of course, for anything good to happen, (1) Hamas needs to be eradicated; and (2) Israel needs to rid itself of Netanyahu and establish a progressive government that would accept an independent Palestine, and in fact provide assistance toward that end. The obvious problem with all this is, getting from point A to point B. (Can Iran, somehow, help with this?)

2 hours ago, Chris.C said:

You are deluded, you think you know better than over 100 aid agencies,  including Oxfam, Savethechildren, UN, Amnesty.

And 2 liked your vile post.

 

Terrorists will will always have thier apologists and supporters, as well as people lying about who else supports their lies and fake propaganda.

When reading this post bear in mind it is taken from an article in the UK Guardian.  

surely if the kid was so hungry its head would be closer to the tit

3 hours ago, Chris.C said:

You are deluded, you think you know better than over 100 aid agencies,  including Oxfam, Savethechildren, UN, Amnesty.

And 2 liked your vile post.

Personally I doubt you even live in Thailand  you have just stumbled across this forum and seized the opportunity to spread your inflammatory anti semitic pro hamas  cr@p       Just leave now and do us all a favour

54 minutes ago, proton said:

 

Terrorists will will always have thier apologists and supporters, as well as people lying about who else supports their lies and fake propaganda.

Are you saying that your dear leader is an apologist and Hamas supporter when he categorically acknowledged that there are real starvation in Gaza. Who is lying; Trump or you. 

 

56 minutes ago, Bday Prang said:

Personally I doubt you even live in Thailand  you have just stumbled across this forum and seized the opportunity to spread your inflammatory anti semitic pro hamas  cr@p       Just leave now and do us all a favour

That's quite a burst of histrionic. It's a humantarian crisis and nothing to do with antisemitic or Islamophobia. 

5 minutes ago, Eric Loh said:

That's quite a burst of histronic. It's a humantarian crisis and nothing to do with antisemitic or Islamophobia. 

 

   The poster whom he replied frequently makes anti semitic remarks 

4 minutes ago, Eric Loh said:

That's quite a burst of histronic

if you are going to have a pop using "clever" words  it would help if you learned how to spell them ijust wasted 10 min of my life thumbing though my dictionary 

6 minutes ago, Nick Carter icp said:

 

   The poster whom he replied frequently makes anti semitic remarks 

and seems to have found a way around the no CAPS rule    even worse imho

5 minutes ago, Bday Prang said:

if you are going to have a pop using "clever" words  it would help if you learned how to spell them ijust wasted 10 min of my life thumbing though my dictionary 

Got it. Now that I know your limited vocabulary, I will use simple word next time. 

6 minutes ago, Eric Loh said:

Got it. Now that I know your limited vocabulary, I will use simple word next time. 

fine by me,   sticks and stones grandad,  probably  better to wait until I insult you personally rather than taking offence on behalf of one of your fellow anti semites 

 Is not understanding a non existent word evidence of a limited vocabulary?

17 minutes ago, Nick Carter icp said:

 

   The poster whom he replied frequently makes anti semitic remarks 

Wow, quote me with one antisemetic remark or shut up.

Just now, Chris.C said:

Wow, quote me with one antisemetic remark or shut up.

 

  I will point out the next one .

Fair enough ?

58 minutes ago, Bday Prang said:

Personally I doubt you even live in Thailand  you have just stumbled across this forum and seized the opportunity to spread your inflammatory anti semitic pro hamas  cr@p       Just leave now and do us all a favour

What a bitter old man. Why?

 Have written NoThInG that is antisemitic as I am not.