Is Gaza Starving? Searching for Truth in an Information War. Plus. . . 

It’s Monday, July 28. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Eli Lake on why South Park works—and Colbert doesn’t. Jed Rubenfeld on the merits of the Macrons’ case against Candace Owens. Our next livestream. And more.

But first: Gaza’s food crisis—and the search for the truth in a relentless information war. 

On Sunday, amid international concern about an escalating humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, Israel announced additional measures to ensure the delivery of aid to the enclave. 

Israel’s military said it would pause military activity in densely populated parts of the Gaza Strip from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. “every day until further notice,” and establish safe routes for humanitarian aid. Israel’s air force has resumed air drops of aid into the strip. Also Sunday, Egypt sent aid into Gaza for the first time outside of a ceasefire since May 2024. Jordan and the UAE air-dropped 25 tons of aid. 

But these actions did little to quiet the charges that Israel has inflicted a famine on Gaza—or settle the debate over the scale of the tragedy and who bears responsibility. The information war, which, in a very real sense, determines the fate of the actual war, rages on.

For a sense of how hard it is to know what to believe about what’s going on in Gaza, consider one photograph.    

If you spent any time on social media this weekend, there’s a good chance you saw it: a haunting image of a mother in a hijab holding a skeletal child, an 18-month-old boy wearing only a diaper.

Often this image was accompanied, side by side, with a black-and-white photograph of a Jewish child on the brink of death in one of Hitler’s death camps. 

The intended message was clear: This Palestinian boy is a symbol for the mass starvation gripping the two million people of Gaza. The blame lies with Israel. Indeed, the Jews themselves are perpetrating the very crime against humanity they suffered in our lifetimes.

But the boy in the picture, Muhammad al-Matouq—who appeared on the front page of Britain’s Daily Express on Wednesday and then on that of The New York Times on Friday, and was picked up by the BBC, CNN, Sky News, and countless others—in fact suffers from a muscle disorder and other grave genetic conditions unrelated to starvation. This is according to CNN and the independent investigative journalist David Collier, but of course that information will never reach the countless people who saw and shared the image.

Nor will the fact that Muhammad’s brother, who is cropped out of the widely circulated image, appears healthy, as does his mother.

None of that diminishes the tragedy of this child’s suffering. But as Matti Friedman writes in his essay for us today, “genuine misery can be put to use by practitioners of information warfare.”

That is as good a summary as any about what Hamas has done since its massacre of October 7, 2023. Death and despair are part of the terrorist group’s strategy; immiserating Gazans and drawing the world’s outrage hurts Israel and helps the terror group’s cause. And that’s to say nothing of the AI-produced images: the heartbreaking pictures of Syrian children lifted and repackaged as Palestinian.

But the truth still matters. And amid the barrage of lies told by Hamas and its allies, how are we to know what is true?

As Matti writes: “In a blizzard of ideological fiction, how are sane citizens in Israel, or anywhere else, supposed to know what’s true and to do the right thing? It’s not an exaggeration to say, as we’re seeing right now, that the answer to this question can be a matter of life and death.”

—The Editors

Two stories on what’s unfolding right now in Gaza.

First, Matti:

Second, a piece by one of Israel’s most influential journalists, Amit Segal, looks at the price of flour in the Strip as a way to measure Gaza’s hunger crisis.

Tune in at 2 p.m. ET: He’s Suing Harvard for Antisemitism 

If you read Johanna Berkman’s recent feature for The Free Press on the students behind the attacks on Jewish students at Harvard who weren’t punished but lauded, you probably remember the name Yoav Segev. He was one of the Jewish students intimidated and harangued on campus in the months after October 7, 2023. Segev is now the plaintiff in a civil-rights lawsuit against the school. His lawsuit lays out what he calls Harvard’s “institutional-level acceptance of antisemitism.” 

On the Free Press livestream this afternoon, Johanna and Yoav join Maya Sulkin to discuss what happened to Yoav, what Harvard did—and didn’t do—to fight antisemitism on campus, and what Yoav’s case means for Jewish students and their presence in the Ivy League. Tune in at 2 p.m. ET and bring your questions. Click here to mark it in your calendars.

• Donald Trump and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced a trade agreement with the European Union Sunday, narrowly escaping a transatlantic trade war. The agreement marks the biggest trade deal struck by Trump since “liberation day,” and includes a 15 percent baseline tariff on European goods as well as a European commitment to buy hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. military equipment and energy products. “I think it’s going to be great for both parties,” Trump said.

• A knife-wielding man injured 11 in a stabbing spree at the local Walmart near Traverse City, Michigan, on Saturday afternoon. The 42-year-old suspect has been taken into custody and faces one charge of terrorism and eleven counts of assault with intent to murder. 

• A Denver pastor and his wife were indicted this week on dozens of charges for their “God-inspired” cryptocurrency. The charges against the pastor, Eligio Regalado, and his wife, Kaitlyn Regalado, include 40 counts of theft, securities fraud, and racketeering. The couple raised $3.4 million by pitching INDXcoin to their Christian following—but prosecutors allege that money went straight to funding their luxurious lifestyle. 

• Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top deputy Todd Blanche and Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell met for nine hours last Thursday and Friday. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, has reportedly been granted “limited” immunity to answer the Justice Department’s questions. In Congress, Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie say they have the votes to force the release of the Epstein files once lawmakers return from summer recess. 

• Democrats received their lowest rating from voters in 35 years, in a new poll from The Wall Street Journal. Sixty-three percent of voters have an unfavorable view of the party, the survey found. Just 8 percent of voters view the party “very favorably.” For more on where the Democrats go next, listen to Bari’s conversation with former Chicago mayor and potential 2028 hopeful Rahm Emanuel on the latest episode of Honestly. 

• Astronomer, the tech company whose CEO recently exited under intense scrutiny for his KissCam appearance with his company’s head of HR at a Coldplay concert, has appointed actress Gwyneth Paltrow to be a “very temporary” spokesperson, as the Shakespeare in Love actress and ex-wife of Coldplay front man Chris Martin put it in a short social media video. “We’ve been thrilled that so many people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation,” she said. “We will now be returning to what we do best—delivering game-changing results for our customers.” Read Kat Rosenfield: “The Coldplay Couple Did Something Bad. The Internet Did Something Worse.”

• Tom Lehrer, a master satirist of the 1950s and ’60s, died Saturday in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at 97. Lehrer’s signature performances included songs like “So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III),” “The Vatican Rag,” and “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.” 

• Cal Raleigh, the catcher for the Seattle Mariners, became the first MLB player to hit 40 home runs this season, with a tiebreaking blast against the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday night. In addition to his incredibly prolific season, Raleigh is perhaps best known for his affectionate nickname: Fans have dubbed him “the Big Dumper” for his “legendary derriere.”