A journalist who photographed a mother cradling her severely malnourished infant child in their barren tent in Gaza has shared the horrifying story behind the photos.
The images shared by Ahmed al-Arini featured in the pages of newspapers around the world this week as international aid organisations warned of the impending risk of famine facing hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Palestinians accuse the IDF of ‘cutting off’ Gaza, but Israel insists that Hamas is to blame for failing to deliver aid to civilians.
Mr al-Arini told the BBC: ‘I took this photo because I wanted to show the rest of the world the extreme hunger that babies and children are suffering from in the Gaza Strip.’
The photos depict infant Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq in his mother’s arms in the bare tent they now share in Gaza City.
Aged 18 months, the stark reality of the war is all he has ever known. He is said to have dropped from nine kilograms to just six–half the weight of a healthy child his age – as the civilian population of Gaza wrestles with the threat of starvation.
Mr al-Arini said that Muhammad and his mother had been displaced by the conflict from their home in northern Gaza, and that he found them in a tent entirely bare, ‘bar a little oven’.
‘It resembles a tomb.’
Muhammad is dressed only in a nappy improvised from a bin bag – a result, the photographer says, of the lack of aid flowing into Gaza. His mother, sallow and gaunt, supports his head with her frail hand.
The child had received no baby milk, formula or vitamins when Mr al-Arini photographed them on July 21, 2025.
After 21 months of protracted conflict in Gaza, Israel announced on Thursday that it was recalling its negotiating team from talks with Hamas, casting doubt on hopes for a lasting and imminent ceasefire.
But on the ground, civilians held in the crossfire cannot afford to wait, according to the United Nations and more than 100 international NGOs, who warned this week that Palestinians are beginning to die of hunger en masse.
The infant Muhammad is dressed only in a nappy improvised from a bin bag – a result, the photographer says, of the lack of aid flowing into Gaza
Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq faces life-threatening malnutrition as the humanitarian situation worsens due to ongoing Israeli attacks and blockade, on July 21, 2025
These harrowing photos, taken by journalist Ahmed al-Arini, lay bare the stark reality facing children growing up in the beleaguered Gaza Strip
Young Muhammad is said to have dropped from nine kilograms to just six. Healthy children his age typically weigh nearly double
Gaza’s population of some 2.1 million people is facing severe shortages of food and other essentials, intensified by a blockade imposed between March and May, and the limit on resources now trickling in.
Israel has blamed the UN for the aid shortage and claimed this week that Hamas is exploiting what it called the ‘famine narrative’ as a tactic used in hostage talks.
The UN says that Israel is not creating the conditions to facilitate the safe delivery of aid.
Facing mounting pressure to deliver aid to Gaza’s civilian population, Israel said today that foreign countries can drop aid into Gaza from today.
A senior IDF official told Sky News on Friday: ‘Starting today, Israel will allow foreign countries to parachute aid into Gaza.
‘Starting this afternoon, the WCK organisation began reactivating its kitchens.’
Israel has hitherto supported a US-backed private aid operation called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
But criticism has mounted following UN reports that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food supplies, mostly near the GHF centres. The UN has termed the distribution scheme a ‘sadistic death trap’.
Israel has accused Hamas of instigating chaos near the aid sites. It says its troops have only fired warning shots, and that they do not deliberately shoot civilians.
GHF, meanwhile, accuses Hamas of massive aid theft in defending its distribution model.
But a new internal U.S. government analysis found no evidence of systematic theft by Hamas of U.S.-funded humanitarian supplies, challenging the main rationale that Israel and the U.S. give for backing the aid operation.
Israel says it is committed to allowing in aid but must control it to prevent it from being stolen by Hamas, which it blames for the crisis.
Until a solution is found, the U.N. World Food Program says nearly a quarter of Gaza’s population faces famine-like conditions, and that thousands are already suffering acute malnutrition.
One aid worker said: ‘Children tell their parents they want to go to heaven, because at least heaven has food.’
Across the Gaza Strip, many children like Muhammad have been born into starvation. Even if the conflict were to end tomorrow, there is still no clear path to rebuilding the vast majority of homes and public services destroyed in the war.
One quarter of all children in Gaza are now suffering from malnutrition, MSF warns
While ceasefire talks offer a lifeline to Gaza’s civilian population, progress has slowed in recent days
Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike targeted a residential area in Gaza City, Gaza, on July 15, 2025
On Friday, Médecins Sans Frontières warned that a quarter of all young children in Gaza are now malnourished, and that rates of severe malnutrition in children under five had tripled in the last two weeks alone.
Gaza health authorities say more than 100 people have died from starvation, most of them in recent weeks. Human rights groups have said mass starvation is spreading even as tonnes of food and other supplies sit untouched just outside the enclave.
On Friday, UNICEF told Reuters that agencies would run out of the crucial specialised therapeutic food needed to save malnourished children by August if nothing changes. A spokesperson said they only had enough Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) to treat 3,000 children.
Nutrient-dense, high-calorie RUTF supplies, such as high-energy biscuits and peanut paste enriched with milk powder, are critical for treating severe malnutrition.
UNICEF said that from April to mid-July, 20,504 children were admitted with acute malnutrition. Of those patients, 3,247 were suffering from severe acute malnutrition, nearly triple the number in the first three months of the year.
Severe acute malnutrition can lead to death, and to long-term physical and mental developmental health problems in children who survive.
The scale of suffering in Gaza has increasingly pressured onlookers to respond to the crisis. Britain’s Foreign Minister David Lammy said today that the deteriorating situation was ‘indefensible’ and repeated calls for a ceasefire.
‘The sight of children reaching for aid and losing their lives has caused consternation over much of the world. And that is why I repeat my call today for a ceasefire,’ he said, adding: ‘The deteriorating situation we’ve seen in Gaza over the last few weeks is indefensible.’
Basic necessities like milk and food are lacking. Women report being unable to breastfeed their children, and turning to rice water instead
A man and woman ride in a donkey-drawn cart carrying a water cistern while behind smoke billows from Israeli bombardment, along Salah al-din road in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on July 21, 2025
Smoke billows from an explosion in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel Wednesday, July 23, 2025
French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday that France intends to recognise a Palestinian state in September in the hopes of bringing peace to the region, drawing sharp rebuke from Israel and the United States.
There were whispers that Britain might be looking to follow suit. One minister told the Financial Times on Thursday: ‘That is where we are heading.’
A senior Labour official said, meanwhile, that the ‘block on this is Keir [Starmer] himself as well as his senior advisors’ as ‘they want to stay close to the U.S.’
British science and technology minister Peter Kyle then told Sky News today: ‘We want Palestinian statehood, we desire it, and we want to make sure the circumstances can exist where that kind of long-term political solution can have the space to evolve.’
‘But right now, today, we’ve got to focus on what will ease the suffering, and it is extreme, unwarranted suffering in Gaza that has to be the priority for us today.’
On statehood, he added: ‘Keir Starmer wants this more than anyone else, but believes it is a crucial step towards delivering the peace and security into the future, and needs to be a negotiated peace within the region itself. It can’t be forced.’
Still, sticking points remain around a Gaza ceasefire.
Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Thursday he was bringing his team home from Doha in Qatar ‘after the latest response from Hamas, which clearly shows a lack of desire to reach a ceasefire in Gaza’.
He said that Hamas ‘does not appear to be co-ordinated or acting in good faith’ and that ‘we will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza’.
For its part, Hamas said it was surprised by the decision of Israel and the U.S. to back out of talks, insisting it wanted to continue negotiations.
One senior Israeli official insisted there was ‘no collapse’ in talks, the Times of Israel reported. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is yet to comment on why their negotiators were leaving Doha.
Israel has said it will not agree to a ceasefire until Hamas gives up power in Gaza and disarms. Hamas says it is willing to leave power but not give up its weapons.
Palestinian teenager Atif Aid Abu Khater, weighing only 25 kilograms due to malnutrition, receives treatment under limited conditions at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, on July 25, 2025
Two year old Yezen Abu Ful, whose health has deteriorated due to lack of access to food and nutritional supplements, is seen with his mother in the Al-Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza Strip on July 24, 2025
One-and-a-half-year-old Muhammed Zakariya Ayyub al-Matouk faces life-threatening conditions due to Israel’s ongoing attacks and blockade in Gaza City, Gaza on July 24, 2025
Ceasefire talks are now expected to resume next week following Israel’s review of Hamas’ response, Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV said on Friday, citing an Egyptian source.
As world leaders look for a way out of the conflict, civilians on the ground continue to endure the worst of its horrors.
According to the UN’s human rights office, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military while trying to get food aid over the last two months.
Just over three quarters were said to have been killed near one of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s four distribution centers.
News agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) also this week called on Israel to allow the immediate evacuation of its freelance contributors and their families, warning that they are struggling to work due to starvation.
The Journalists Association for AFP said in a statement that its colleagues were at serious risk of starvation and that ‘without intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die’.
The statement said that journalists working in Gaza have warned recently that they no longer have the strength to do their jobs. Throughout the war, AFP reporters have bravely reported from the frontlines, shining light on the darkest aspects of the conflict despite risk of injury or death.
The loss of quality reporting from inside the Palestinian enclave would undermine efforts to report accurately on the war.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, an humanitarian group working in Gaza, also reported this week that its staff were ‘joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families’.
‘With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organisations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes,’ it said in a statement, joining calls to open land crossings and restore the full flow of food.