Yazan Kafarnah's photos and videos have gone around the world. They were used to denounce problems related to child malnutrition in Gaza following the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Yazan died of malnutrition on March 4, 2024 in Rafah at Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital, sparking anger among supporters of the Palestinian cause and beyond. On the other hand, some have supported different versions of the story, claiming that he did not die of malnutrition. The issue is much more complex and needs to be explained in depth. For this and other controls, we recommend both”Pro-Israeli propaganda hoaxes” And “Pro-Palestinian propaganda hoaxes“.
For those in a hurry
- Many claim that this story is false, because the child's mother is not malnourished at all.
- The theory is that the child had completely different problems, like a tumor, and was terminally ill.
- The widespread narrative about Yazan Kafarnah does not clearly reflect his actual state of health.
- He suffered from childhood cerebral palsy, a condition that makes eating difficult.
- These children need adequate treatment, in some cases they must be tube fed.
- Yazan would have died of malnutrition in the absence of adequate food aid.
- Unicef reports some deaths due to malnutrition, but Yazan's condition is not the same as that of other children in Gaza.
Analyzes
On social networks, such as on Twitter/X, some say that it cannot be malnutrition. To prove it, they share the photo of the child with the mother next to her who is not at all malnourished and who is accused of not feeding her child.
Always second the user Hoda_jannat, sharing by others as a source to deny the account, it would be a terminally ill person who was reduced to this state not because of his diet.
There are those he pretendssharing these criticisms, that the child is a terminally ill patient undergoing rounds of chemotherapy:
Previous Photos and Signs of a Problem
Multiple users share the photo of the child who represents him with a face that is anything but skeletal, apparently in good health. However, something is wrong with the thin arms and posture.
The video of Alaraby and cerebral palsy
Searching for information about the child in Arabic, we find a video posted on March 2, 2024 by the YouTube channel of Alarm where his situation is recounted. Around 12:20 a.m., we talk about “cerebral palsy from birth”.
Around 0 min 25 s, Alarm suggests that the child needed a special diet. The report goes on to talk about the conflict and how it has made access to food and medicine difficult.
Cerebral palsy and nutrition
From the site Msdmanuals.comby voice Cerebral palsyRead:
Cerebral palsy refers to a group of conditions involving difficulty in movement and muscle stiffness (spasticity). It results from brain malformations before birth during brain development or from brain damage before, during or immediately after birth.
[…]
Symptoms range from a mildly detectable lack of coordination, to significant difficulty moving one or more limbs, to complete paralysis of the joints.
[…]
Some children with cerebral palsy also have intellectual disabilities, behavioral problems, vision and hearing problems, and/or seizure syndromes.
[…]
Cerebral palsy (CP) affects approximately 2 to 3 in 1,000 newborns, especially premature infants younger than 28 weeks of gestation.
Concerning nutrition, here is what is reported for the most serious cases:
The prognosis generally depends on the form and severity. Most children with cerebral palsy survive into adulthood. Only the most severely affected people, unable to care for themselves or eat food orally, have their life expectancy significantly reduced.
On the website of Nestléhealthscience.itfrom the multinational of the same name, presents a space dedicated to the nutrition of children with cerebral palsy:
The truth is that the act of eating requires the simultaneous coordination of a large number of muscle groups (especially the facial muscles). Since cerebral palsy affects body movement and muscle control, the act of eating may also be affected.
Children with cerebral palsy may suffer from dysphagia, a dysfunction of oral motor skills, which can lead to difficulty keeping food in the mouth, choking and poor weight gain:
Typically, a person with dysphagia has difficulty swallowing food and/or liquids. Dysphagia can not only lead to malnutrition, but can also cause various respiratory problems, such as pneumonia, due to recurrent aspiration (when food or liquid enters the airways or lungs, due to difficulty in breathing). swallow).
On the website of Professor Nicola Portinaro, pediatric orthopedic surgeon at the Humanitas Research Hospital, there is a list of surgical solutions that “may be necessary in certain cases to improve quality of life.” Among these “feeding tubes to insert”. In this case, we are talking about the nasogastric tube through which specific liquids pass, and not “normal” foods.
Unicef note on north and south Gaza
According to a note from UNICEFpublished on March 3, 2024, several children are reported to have died of dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital, north of Gaza:
News of child deaths has arrived, news we had been dreading – as malnutrition ravages the Gaza Strip. At least ten children are reported to have died of dehydration and malnutrition in recent days at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. It is likely that more children are fighting for their lives somewhere in one of the few remaining hospitals in Gaza, and even more children in the north are not receiving any treatment. These tragic and horrific deaths are man-made, predictable and entirely preventable.
In the note, UNICEF distinguishes between the conditions of the two different areas of the Gaza Strip:
The disparity between North and South clearly shows that aid restrictions to the North are costing lives. Malnutrition screenings carried out by UNICEF and WFP in the north of the country in January found that nearly 16% – or 1 in 6 children under 2 – were suffering from severe malnutrition. Similar tests were conducted in the south, in Rafah, where aid was more available, and found that 5 percent of children under 2 suffered from severe malnutrition.
Yazan Kafarnah died in Rafah, where help is more available, but one must consider that it would certainly be helpful for children in conditions different from his.
Conclusions
Yazan Kafarnah died of malnutrition. Some deny this, saying he was left to die or that he was terminally ill with cancer. His conditions were certainly different from those of many other children in Gaza, but that doesn't change the fact that he may have died from lack of adequate care during the conflict. He suffered from cerebral palsy, a condition in which some children cannot feed themselves orally. The lack of adequate support, conditioned by the current conflict and the supply of medicines, etc., could have worsened his already fragile situation, leading to his death.
