Four years ago, nine Los Angeles Times journalists signed a petition of journalists calling for the wholesale abandonment of journalistic ethics by replacing accuracy with advocacy.
The paper’s anonymous “Voices” feature late last month, “Famine’s toll on the children of Gaza: The world shouldn’t look away,” is the natural product of that aspiration to spurn all that stands at the heart of ethical journalism, that is “striv[ing] to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough.”
It’s as if, by depriving themselves for so long of the essential ingredients which nourish healthy journalism — seek truth and report it, minimize harm and act independently — Los Angeles Times writers have devolved into ghoulish emaciated shadows of functioning journalists.
And, thus, under the guise of “contextualized truth,” in which coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is shoehorned into the demonizing prism of “Israel’s military occupation and its system of apartheid,” as the anti-journalism journalists put it in 2021, the Times‘ “Voices” piece falsely depicts numerous children suffering from severe medical disorders as victims of “famine” in Gaza.
Stripped bare of the integrity which stands as the hallmark of ethical journalism, the article systematically conceals the underlying medical disorders of emaciated children. In numerous instances, the highly emotive photo essay depicts children as wasting away due to food deprivation, completely ignoring their pre-existing medical conditions.
By erasing the underlying medical disorders of these extreme cases, the Times depicts these horribly suffering children as representative of the condition of all children in the Gaza Strip. Thus, the photo essay opens: “These images are part of a series highlighting the suffering of children in Gaza, where a humanitarian disaster is escalating and civilians are starving.”
The text accompanying the first shocking photo following this framing gives this highly selective and thus egregiously false report:
Brothers Udai, 3, and Muhammad Muhra, 4, who suffer from severe malnutrition, are being treated Wednesday at Askidaa al Marid hospital in Gaza. Israel’s air and ground war has killed more than 61,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and caused severe and widespread hunger.
At no point does the LA Times‘ “Voices” piece note that the brothers suffer from a genetic nerve disorder, as reported by the Associated Press (see 45 seconds into this video).
Then there’s four-month-old Ammar Amara, who, even according to Hamas’ own Quds Network propaganda outlet, suffers from an intestinal obstruction. But The Los Angeles Times’ “Voices” erases this piece of key information, concealing:
Amara Amara cries as she holds her 4-month-old son, Ammar, in Gaza City this week. Israel’s blockade and military offensive have made it nearly impossible to safely deliver aid, contributing to the territory’s slide toward famine. Aid groups say Israel’s recent measures to allow more aid in are far from sufficient.
Worse, regarding Maryam Davvas, “Voices” outright denies that she has any underlying medical conditions. But hospital records reveal just the opposite. The article falsely reports:
Maryam Abdulaziz Mahmoud Davvas, 9, who took shelter with her family at a displacement center due to ongoing Israeli attacks, has become unable to walk due to severe malnutrition in Gaza City, Gaza, on Thursday. Hospital tests revealed no underlying medical condition, and doctors confirmed that her condition is solely the result of hunger and malnutrition.
But independent journalist David Collier — the same journalist who exposed the abysmal media miscoverage of the emaciated toddler Mohammad al-Mutawaq (more on that later) — reported: “She suffers from intestinal malabsorption. Her body cannot properly absorb nutrients. She was given food, therapeutic milk, and medication – but she could not absorb them.” He has the medical documentation, provided from a whistleblower in Davvas’ hospital, to prove it.
Further, The Free Press reported that Maryam’s mother has acknowledged an underlying medical disorder:
“I suspect that Maryam has another problem besides malnutrition,” she said in Arabic in the video, adding that she had taken her daughter to multiple doctors in search of a diagnosis. “I suspect that my daughter has a condition that no one understands here in Gaza.”
In an interview with The Palestine Post, an Arabic outlet focused on raising “awareness of the Palestinian cause,” the mother said that her daughter has been struggling with “chronic diarrhea.” She said that she had taken her daughter to a gastroenterologist during the war but that all the tests had come out “perfectly clean.”
Then, there’s Obaida Al-Qarra, about whom “Voices” gives this incomplete account falsely indicating that malnutrition alone is the cause of his emaciation:
Obaida Al-Qarra, 10, receives treatement for malnutrition at Nasser Haspital in the Gaza Strip on July 27, 2025. He recently contracted chicken pox.
As explained by Al-Qarra’s father, Obaida has shrapnel lodged in the brain, resulting in total paralysis. Why did “Voices” ignore that he is paralyzed?
“Famine’s toll” top featured photo is of Nafez Mohammad Khidr Nasser. According to countless social media posts urging help for the child, he was born with a disability. Yet, “Voices”‘ caption says only he “lacks basic food and medicine and is suffering from malnutrition.” It says not a word about the disability with which he was reportedly born.
Finally, “The Voices” twice refers to the same child, Mohammed al-Mutawaq, with two different spellings (also Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq), in two separate photo captions. In the first instance, the caption refers to him as “an 18-month-old Palestinian boy with medical issues and signs of malnutrition.” In the second instance, with the spelling Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, the caption drops the already abbreviated reference to the boy’s serious genetic disorders, stating only that he “faces life-threatening malnutrition as the humanitarian situation worsens in Gaza City.”
This is the one and same Mohammed al-Mutawaq whom The New York Times infamously featured on its home page as an example of child starvation in the Gaza Strip, and then issued an editor’s note:
An article on Friday about people in Gaza suffering from malnutrition and starvation after nearly two years of war with Israel lacked information about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child suffering from severe malnutrition and whose photo was featured prominently in the article. After publication of the article, The Times learned from his doctor that Mohammed also had pre-existing health problems. Had The Times known the information before publication, it would have been included in the article and the picture caption.
Additional information about the other children appearing in the anonymous “Voices” piece was not immediately available. Given the multiple cases of documented failure to report pre-existing medical conditions contributing to emaciation — and the fact that “Voices” reported blatantly false information about Davvas, with the truth about her pre-existing medical conditions diametrically opposite to the paper’s reporting — the veracity of the rest of the cases is deeply suspect.