Daily Mirror Exploits Gazan Child to Push Hamas Famine Narrative

• On August 19, the Anadolu agency published an article about 3-year-old Gazan Karim Ali Fouad Abu Mu’amar, saying that he has a rare genetic disease called Fanconi Syndrome.
• On August 23, the UK’s Daily Mirror misled its readers by publishing an image of the boy on its front page and portraying him as starving, omitting that he has the disease.
• Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) also revealed Karim’s medical referral report, which has evidence of his medical condition.
• The Daily Mirror’s actions are part of a consistent agenda to paint Israel as a genocidal oppressor while ignoring the facts.

The image was paired with what the outlet claimed was an open letter signed by 12 Holocaust survivors calling to end the war and to “STOP STARVING GAZA’S KIDS.”

The Turkish state Anadolu Agency confirmed on August 19 that three-year-old Karim Ali Fouad Abu Mu’amar, in Gaza, has the rare genetic Fanconi Syndrome.

But the Daily Mirror decided to ignore this crucial piece of information, and on August 23, plastered Karim on its front page, using him as the poster child for what the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) asserts as “famine” in the Gaza Strip, completely omitting the disease as a factor for his condition.

The article also used an image of five-year-old Dalya Mohammed al-Zuweidi, who suffers neurological damage stemming from oxygen deprivation to her brain.

This matters because it’s not an accurate representation of the average Gazan child. It doesn’t mean they aren’t hungry; it just means Karim and Dalya are on the extreme end of the spectrum and shouldn’t be representing even hungry children in Gaza, with their serious underlying conditions.

Swiftly, COGAT provided Karim’s referral report on Sunday – evidence straight from the European Gaza Hospital.

The report indicates Karim’s diagnosis was made at 10 months old, and that there is a family history of the syndrome.

This is just the latest example of media misusing dramatic images of emaciated Gazan children in an attempt to paint Israel as responsible for deliberately starving Palestinians and promoting Hamas’ famine narrative while failing to acknowledge those children’s pre-existing conditions. Reproducing Hamas propaganda without verification, and seemingly, deliberatly omitting information, isn’t journalism; it’s propaganda.

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