Hypocrisy exposed – International outlets largely ignore emaciated Israeli hostages after featuring false starving Gaza children pictures

Ambassador Huckabee calls to 'set the record straight' on Gaza aid

Shocking videos released by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad last week showing hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski in a condition of severe malnutrition caused immediate outrage in Israel. However, the response of the international mainstream media, in almost completely ignoring the videos has led to renewed furor.

Several major news outlets around the world ran stories of the food shortage in Gaza over the past couple weeks, often using dramatic pictures of clearly malnourished children who were later revealed to have congenital conditions, which led to their declined physical state. While news organizations used the images to highlight the food shortage in Gaza, they positioned the images as depicting the results of an alleged Israeli “starvation campaign.”

After the videos depicting Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David were released by the two terror organizations, several voices in Israel wondered if those news organizations would devote the same amount of attention to the deliberately starved hostages. International Human Rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky predicted on social media that The New York Times would not publish a front page story about Evyatar.

This is what the @nytimes front page should look like today.

But it won't. pic.twitter.com/wNsGneozOu
— Arsen Ostrovsky 🎗️ (@Ostrov_A) August 2, 2025

While they did run a short article on the videos of Evyatar and Rom, the story was not given priority placement on the website.

The New York Times was not alone in ignoring the story of David and Braslavski. The BBC published a lead story on Hamas’ refusal to disarm unless a Palestinian state is established with Jerusalem as the capital city, in which the agency mentioned the video of Evyatar in passing, choosing to focus on the David family’s reaction, rather than Evyatar’s condition.

Another British news agency, Sky News, mentioned the video of Evyatar, but used it to support its claim that “Gaza itself is suffering ‘man-made mass starvation' because of Israel's blockade on aid to the enclave,” citing the World Health Organization (WHO).

Despite leading with a picture of Evyatar, most of Sky’s story focused on the alleged famine happening in Gaza, along with condemnation of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Another British news agency, The Guardian, focused almost exclusively on stories related to claims of Israeli war crimes and the alleged famine in Gaza, without mentioning the videos of David or Braslavski.

In contrast, the British tabloids The Daily Mail and The Sun, both featured prominent stories about the videos, with The Daily Mail comparing Evyatar’s condition to that of “a concentration camp victim.”

German news agency Bild, which has run several stories during the war on the condition of the hostages, ran a story with the headline, “Hamas forces Evyatar (24), to dig his own grave,” with the subhead declaring, “Barbaric! Terrorists use Israeli hostage for their Gaza Propaganda.”

The Foreign Ministry called attention to the hypocrisy of the international media, calling out several prominent news agencies in a post on 𝕏.

. @nytimes @bbc @cnn @Daily_Express - This is what your front page should've looked like! pic.twitter.com/yaGahFrhkL
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) August 3, 2025

News watchdog Honest Reporting, which was founded because of anti-Israel bias in The New York Times and other agencies, referred to the “contempt international media shows for Israeli hostages.”

1/
Side by side — so you can see the contempt international media shows for Israeli hostages.@nytimes gave prominent coverage to a Gaza baby later found to have a congenital illness.
Evyatar David – starved, held 660+ days by Hamas – got one line.

They saw. They didn’t care. pic.twitter.com/Qm4bIGqlLi
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 3, 2025

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also drew attention to the misleading news narrative, highlighting the amount of aid going into Gaza via the UN system as opposed to GHF, and drawing attention to Evyatar David’s condition.

“Let’s set the record straight,” Huckabee wrote.

The Israeli government, along with several Middle Eastern nations have begun conducting airdrops and other operations to increase the amount of food entering Gaza, while also trying to prevent most of it from reaching Hamas.