Herzog Holds Up Hostage Photos and Calls Gaza Hunger Images Staged

President Isaac Herzog of Israel used a joint press appearance with President Alar Karis of Estonia in Tallinn on Wednesday to attack what he described as Hamas-led propaganda, citing recent investigations by German newspapers into staged images from Gaza, according to a report issued through the Press Service of Israel on 6 August 2025.

Standing beside Karis at the Estonian presidential palace, Herzog held up two photographs: one of the Israeli hostage Eviatar David, who had attended the Nova music festival and appeared emaciated after months in captivity, and one of Rom Breslavsky, who had appeared in a recent Hamas video. He set them against a contested image from Gaza showing Palestinians holding empty pots in front of a food distribution centre. “It was all staged,” Herzog said. “There was food in the next room; the hostages who escaped from tunnels told us this. The captors are not starving. Our people are.” The Times of Israel reported the same appearance on 6 August 2025, describing it as the final stop of Herzog’s visit to the Baltic states.

What the German papers reported

Herzog’s remarks followed an investigation by the Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, which reported that professional photographers, some working with international news agencies, had directed civilians to pose with empty pots and in constructed scenes intended to convey starvation. “At least some of the images were presented in a false or misleading context,” the paper concluded. The tabloid Bild identified one such photographer as Anas Zayed Fatiyeh, hired by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, and said he regularly posted anti-Israel content on social media; his photographs had been published by outlets including the BBC and CNN. “Why are German and international news agencies continuing to use his images when many are clearly biased or staged?” Bild asked.

The Times of Israel reported the German coverage on 6 August 2025, rendering the photographer’s name as Anas Zayed Fteiha, and noted the consequences and the pushback: the German Press Agency and Agence France-Presse said they would stop working with him, while Reuters said its photographs met its standards of accuracy, independence and impartiality, and a Reporters Without Borders representative argued that a photographer giving instructions remains within accepted practice so long as the result broadly reflects reality.

The alarm inside the German press

The dispute reached Germany’s own journalism bodies. The German Journalists’ Association, the DJV, warned of “manipulation attempts through professionally produced press photography”, and its chair Mika Beuster said that “all parties involved in this war, including media and intelligence services, are using the power of imagery like never before to shape public perception”. A historian and visual documentation specialist interviewed by Süddeutsche Zeitung said that while not all the images were outright fakes, they were often “positioned a certain way or paired with misleading captions that tap into our visual memory and emotions”.

The hunger the images were about

Sixteen days after Herzog spoke in Tallinn, the question of whether Gaza was starving was answered formally. The World Health Organization announced on 22 August 2025 that the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification had confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate (the first such confirmation anywhere in the Middle East), with more than 500,000 people in catastrophic conditions and more than 12,000 children identified as acutely malnourished in July alone.

What Herzog said about aid

“We do not deny the humanitarian need in Gaza,” Herzog said, “but we ask the world not to fall for Hamas’ lies. Condemn Hamas and tell them: You want to move forward? Release the hostages.” He said Israel had brought in 30,000 tons of aid in the previous week alone, including 30 tons by air the day before, and said the United Nations had almost 800 trucks it could have distributed and had failed to do so. The release also cited an investigation by the Press Service of Israel finding that, on United Nations figures, 85 per cent of the aid entering Gaza by truck since 19 May had been stolen, and quoted Palestinians in Gaza describing flour resold at inflated prices.

What is still unclear

The release did not say which specific photographs were withdrawn by which outlets, or whether the BBC and CNN responded. Herzog’s aid tonnage figures and the 85 per cent theft figure are Israeli and Press Service of Israel claims that Israel.com has not independently verified. The transliteration of the photographer’s name varies between the release and other reporting, and the historian quoted by Süddeutsche Zeitung is not named in the release.