Palestinian mother 'destroyed' after image used to deny Gaza starvation
From Canada, where she lives with her six other children, Najjar pursued a months-long effort to get those she had left out of Gaza.
She finally embraced her daughters and seven grandchildren when they arrived at Toronto's airport last month.
But when clips of the emotional reunion were posted on social media, pro-Israeli accounts mocked her physical appearance saying it disproved claims of starvation in Gaza.
"As a mother it just destroyed me," Najjar, 50, told AFP.
Najjar did not claim that she went hungry while in Gaza.
But as recently as this past weekend a post viewed more than 300,000 times across multiple platforms ridiculed her, erroneously implying she had just left Gaza.
"Did you see what that woman looked like?" the poster said, pointing out Najjar does not look undernourished.
United Nations agencies have warned that famine was unfolding in Gaza, with Israel severely restricting the entry of aid. Images of sick and emaciated Palestinian children have drawn international outrage.
The allegation has been denied by Israel. "There is no starvation in Gaza," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month.
The ridicule Najjar faced is part of a broader trend.
Israeli anchors on the country's right-wing Channel 14 -- sometimes described as the Hebrew Fox News -- have laughed at "obese" mothers, alleging they steal their children's food.
For Najjar, the fact that her family's reunion got caught up in a misinformation campaign was devastating.
"After all the suffering, and losing everything, and nearly dying, some people still had the heart to mock them," she said, referring to her family.
"My daughters lived there and their children went to sleep hungry...with bombs outside their tents," Najjar said.
Pro-Israeli commentators online also focused on her grandchildren's apparently healthy appearance.
Najjar told AFP they received medical treatment, including renourishment, at a hospital in Jordan before flying to Canada.
- Deflecting attention -
Mert Can Bayar, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington, said the posts targeting Najjar are "just one little piece" of a misleading online narrative.
Toronto's Mayor Olivia Chow removed a video she had posted on Instagram in which she welcomed arriving Palestinians because of abusive comments directed at the family.
Comments on Chow's video also cited the family's physical appearance to broadly dismiss claims of starvation in Gaza.
X's chatbot Grok also misidentified a 2025 AFP photo of an emaciated child in Gaza, incorrectly saying it was taken in Yemen seven years ago, fuelling further claims that reports of starvation in Gaza have been fabricated.
Valerie Wirtschafter, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think-tank, said the claims were reminiscent of falsehoods that emerged weeks into the war alleging Palestinians had posed as so-called crisis actors and staged their injuries.
Wirtschafter said the hoax narrative "deflects from the real humanitarian harms that are happening right now."
- 'Denial' -
Israel's offensive has killed at least 61,430 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, figures the United Nations deems reliable.
Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Forty-nine of the 251 hostages taken by Hamas are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
When Najjar left Gaza last year, her daughters -- all in their 20s -- did not have Canadian citizenship.
With the family separated, she lived with crippling fear at the prospect of receiving word that they had been killed.
While her daughters now have citizenship and are in Canada with their children, her sons-in-law remain in Gaza, where the UN's Integrated Food Security Phase Classification says "widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths."
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ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
Australia's commitment to recognise Palestine met with 'disappointment and disgust' by Trump administration
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ABC News
5 hours ago
- ABC News
What is the US response to Australia committing to recognition of a Palestinian state?
SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER: Mike Huckabee was appointed by President Donald Trump as the US ambassador to Israel earlier this year. He joins me now from Jerusalem. Ambassador Huckabee, welcome. MIKE HUCKABEE, US AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL: Thank you, Sarah, an honour to be with you. SARAH FERGUSON: What is the US response to Australia joining other key allies in committing to recognition of a Palestinian state? MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, the US is disappointed that nations like Australia, UK and others, have decided to pick this particular time to unilaterally recognise a second state. I think that the timing has been very hurtful to any prospects of negotiating some settlement in Gaza with Hamas. They basically walked away. This is a gift to them and it's unfortunate. And also, it is a violation of the agreement that was done in Oslo that any type of recognition of a Palestinian state would involve the Israelis. This clearly does not, and I would say that it is unfortunate, but it's also very disappointing to the United States. SARAH FERGUSON: I think it's worth pointing out that Prime Minister Netanyahu has said in the past that he was proud to have put the brakes on Oslo. But let me ask you a specific question, have you discussed this issue with Donald Trump, President Trump? MIKE HUCKABEE: Absolutely and we discussed it at State Department level with the Secretary. There is an enormous level of disappointment, and some disgust. You perhaps heard the Secretary Rubio's interview this past weekend and he made it very clear that the result of this has been to completely halt any type of thoughtful negotiations going forward, and it's just very terrible timing for this to come about. SARAH FERGUSON: Can you be precise? We have heard what Secretary Rubio said. What did President Trump specifically say about this decision? MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, I don't want to disclose personal conversations with the President, that wouldn't be appropriate for me to do. SARAH FERGUSON: Perhaps, ambassador, you could characterise them for us? MIKE HUCKABEE: I can characterise them as sharing what I just shared. That is disappointing and frustrating. Frustrating that there was no communication with the United States. As Israel's closest partner, we would have expected that there would have been some heads up. There wasn't. This was done unilaterally. That was a disappointment. In the case of the UK, the President had had an extensive visit with the Prime Minister in the UK and about an hour after the President left to go back to Washington, that's when this decision was announced. One would think that it would have been an appropriate topic of conversation while the two were sitting there together. SARAH FERGUSON: And just if I could come back, you used the word "disgust", that's a very strong term. Who expressed disgust? Was that the President? MIKE HUCKABEE: I don't know that the President used that word. I would say that it is a characterisation of the sentiment - whether or not that word was employed by anybody in particular other than me. I think that it does express, though, the emotional sentiment, a sense of, you've got to be kidding! Why would they be doing this? And why would they be doing it now? And why wouldn't they not be telling the United States, or telling Israel, for that matter. But to go out and make a public announcement like this - it was unseemly. SARAH FERGUSON: Let me just put to you some of the arguments that were made by the Australian Government in making this decision. They felt, for example, that they had no option than to recognise a Palestinian state before Israel annexed the West Bank and to use their words, there was no state left to recognise. What do you say to the Australian Government in relation to that? MIKE HUCKABEE: I would say what Australia and the other countries may have done inadvertently is to push Israel towards doing exactly what they're afraid of. SARAH FERGUSON: But just talk to me about the US. This is really a question as to whether or not the US is becoming isolated? Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that they had to do this because shortly, given what we've heard from the Israelis in relation to annexing the West Bank, there would be no state left to recognise. So how do you respond to that? MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, I would be very quick to tell you, I don't think that the United States feels isolated at all. You asked do we feel isolated? No, we don't. We're a sovereign country, so is Israel. So is Australia. Australia can do what it wants to do but we certainly don't have to agree with it. We don't have to like it. We don't have to pretend that it's okay, because in our view, it's not okay. And it was ill-timed, and I think, when hostages are being held, and tortured, not just held. They're not being fed. They're being forced to dig their own graves. We have seen the videos. And for this to come at a time like this, further endangering them, and endangering any hopes of some peaceful resolution of dealing with Hamas and getting them to lay down their arms. And Sarah, something that I think is very important to note, in the very week that the Australian Government, along with many others, were declaring publicly for a Palestinian state, you know who wasn't declaring for a Palestinian state? The Arab League. What they were calling for, that very week, was for Hamas to disarm and to let all of the hostages go. SARAH FERGUSON: I think that I just have to interrupt you there, ambassador, because it is clear that the Arab League has welcomed this recognition of a Palestinian state. But let's move on. Let me ask you a different question. MIKE HUCKABEE: They weren't calling for it last week, Sarah. They weren't calling for it last week. They were calling for Hamas to lay down their arms and surrender the hostages, and I think that it is an issue of timing. So I want to be very clear that, of course, they probably all support a second state, that they knew that there was a time and a place. Last week wasn't the time or the place. SARAH FERGUSON: Let me ask you this question. Do you take it as a starting point for any discussion on this conflict that the idea of a two-state solution is dead? MIKE HUCKABEE: The idea of a two-state solution is only alive if Israel and the Palestinian Authority can figure out a way to make it work. But as long as you have people chanting "From the river to the sea", as long as the Palestinian Authority continues to pay terrorists stipends for murdering Jews ... SARAH FERGUSON: I think to be clear, that Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, has committed to stop doing that. But please continue. MIKE HUCKABEE: No, actually, he hasn't, Sarah. He said in Arabic, that if there is only one penny left in the Treasury, that penny will go to the martyrs. So whatever he may say in one language to sound as if he's appeasing, the truth is that he has not given up on that policy. It is still going on today. SARAH FERGUSON: Let me ask you another question. This is really looking at the situation in Gaza, which was along with the question over the annexation of the West Bank was the other set of circumstances that the Australian Government described as motivating them in this decision. Why is the Trump administration apparently powerless in its ability to impact on the way Benjamin Netanyahu has conducted this war? MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, I don't know that it is the role of the United States to tell Israel how to prosecute a war. I want to remind you that there were 100 Americans who were held hostage, too. Two of them, who are deceased, their remains are still being held hostage. Some of them are out. Others have been killed, and we have their remains back. SARAH FERGUSON: Does not the United States' very large military aid, billions and billions of dollars to Israel, give you some leverage over how the war is conducted? MIKE HUCKABEE: I guess if we wanted to tell them what to do, we would but they're our partner. We respect the fact that they were attacked on October 7. They're not the attacking country. They were attacked country and there were 1,200 people... SARAH FERGUSON: Sure but the question here... MIKE HUCKABEE: No, Sarah, I'm going to stop you there. SARAH FERGUSON: Go ahead. MIKE HUCKABEE: Because I'm so tired of people blaming Israel for the fact that it is defending themselves against the monsters who raped women in front of their families, who mutilated their bodies, who burnt babies, who beheaded people, who burned elderly people in their wheelchairs, who took 250 people hostage - continued to torture them - many of them Holocaust survivors, many of them children and infants and somehow, we're supposed to blame Israel because it's trying to defend its country. No, I'm sorry, we're not going to tell them how to defend themselves. SARAH FERGUSON: As I have said many times on this program, the actions of Hamas are repulsive to all right-thinking people. This is a question however about the extended coverage of the war, not Israel's right to defend itself. Israel has dropped 100,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza, a very small territory. That is more than the combined ordinance dropped on Hamburg, Dresden and the United Kingdom in the Second World War. That is the question. You cannot do that over a tiny space without mass casualty. So why doesn't the US have anything to say about the huge extent of civilian casualties in Gaza? MIKE HUCKABEE: We do. We have a lot to say about it. The first thing that we say is that Hamas should have surrendered on October the 8th. That would have ended the war and there wouldn't have been civilian casualties. The second thing that we say is that Hamas shouldn't do what it does routinely, which is put its civilians in front of targets that the Israelis announce in advance they're going to hit. I've got to be very clear to you. Not even the US military, and I think that we have one of the best and most ethical that have ever existed, but we don't announce in advance when we're going to hit a target, where we're going to hit and tell people to get out of it. Israel does that. They get no credit for that but Hamas on the other hand, they move their civilians right towards the target that Israel has announced, and then they threaten to shoot anyone who gets away from the target. So do they have a lot of civilian casualties? Yes, they do and a lot of the reason that they do is because Hamas makes sure that they have civilian casualties, because then, everybody can blame Israel for it. SARAH FERGUSON: I just note that you're not answering the question about Israel's conduct of the war. But let me ask you a different question about the war. MIKE HUCKABEE: No, I just did. I told you that Israel, I did announce that. I told you very clearly. SARAH FERGUSON: A partial answer, if I may, ambassador. A partial answer about warnings that are not universal. Let me ask you a different question. We all pay a lot of attention to your President. You are aware of that. We watched him express some disquiet, some upset over pictures of starving children in Gaza. When understand he doesn't like it. Why doesn't he make it stop? MIKE HUCKABEE: I think that the President has done more than anyone else I know to stop it. He was the one who authorised us to create the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, to start feeding people. He gave us two directives, Sarah. He gave us one, get food to people who are hungry. Two, give it to them in a way where Hamas cannot steal it or loot it and turn it into a commodity that they can sell, which they have been doing, to the tune of $500 million last year. So the President has been very clear what he wants to see done. I just wish people would recognise that the real reason for any deprivation in Gaza and starvation that may be happening is because Hamas has taken control of the food. This morning, I got the reports that of the UN food that goes in, as of this week, 91.5 per cent of food was stolen or looted. SARAH FERGUSON: We are running out of time but I am going to jump in there because I need to say something to the audience which is that since that organisation took over there, there has been a fundamental change in the way that aid is distributed inside Gaza. There are now only four centres. There were 400. There is only one crossing, one road in and more than 1,000 people have been killed while seeking that aid. But the issue here, I'm afraid here, is that we're running out of time. Ambassador Huckabee, I'm very grateful for the time that you've given us. Thank you for joining us. MIKE HUCKABEE: Thank you, Sarah. SARAH FERGUSON: Thank you.
Sky News AU
5 hours ago
- Sky News AU
‘Roadblocks in the way of peace': Sussan Ley on Anthony Albanese's US and Israeli relationships
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley hits out against Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's fumbling of the US alliance while pushing for an Israel-Palestine two-state solution. 'They are roadblocks in the way of peace in the region and the requirement, the wish we have for a two-state solution is further away from reality than ever,' Ms Ley told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. 'I am very disappointed to see our prime minister make such a mess of this.'
