Skeletal children? What skeletal children?

There are few truths more incontestable and infuriating than those of the consumed ribs of children dying of hunger. Several newspapers have begun to publish them on the front page, in the vain hope that their fragile image will catalyze a definitive change in public opinion regarding the genocide in Gaza. Even a conservative newspaper like the Daily Express included a photograph of one of these babies, Mohammed, and the headline "For the love of God, stop this right now." And yet, there is a strong push to deny even that war crime—so say the Geneva Convention or the Rome Statute—of starving the civilian population to death.

The excuse, in this case, has been the discovery that the one-and-a-half-year-old boy already had pre-existing health problems that affected his growth. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has circulated a photograph of the child himself, in this case alongside his brother, who shows no obvious symptoms of malnutrition (although a T-shirt hides his features). New York Times, which also featured Mohammed's story on its front page on Friday, has revised the article to explain this. Although, to be on the safe side, the first sentence of the new paragraph is "Gaza's children are malnourished and starving," Israel's official media and its machinery are already exploiting the issue to deny the existence of a hunger campaign. They do so in a cruel, dishonest way, since the pre-existing condition of this little boy with the body of a sparrow does not prevent him from... besides, is malnourished. It's not exclusive. Moreover, malnutrition preys with sharper teeth on children who have other health problems. Mohammed's perspective should cut through the battle for the narrative and challenge us directly: do we want to allow this?