Original article (in Albanian) was published on 10/07/2025; Author: Patris Pustina
An image of a young girl is spreading onhttps://www.instagram.com/p/DKE5uWnNP5W/ social media, including Albanian-speaking platforms, claiming that she is a little girl in Gaza who ‘gives bread to a journalist, believing he is hungry as well’.
Using Google Lens visual search, Faktoje found that the above photo has been circulating online since at least 2015, before the Israeli blockade of Gaza. While we were unable to trace the photo’s origin, who took it, or when and where it was taken, it is certain that it does not show a little girl in Gaza in 2025.
The description accompanying the September 2015 post implies that the little girl is from or in Syria.
Palestinians across Gaza are suffering from hunger and a lack of essential supplies. The Gaza Strip remains on the brink of famine due to the Israeli closure and blockade, along with ongoing illegal restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid.
For 11 weeks, Israel blocked all food, medicine, and other supplies from entering Gaza, accusing Hamas of diverting aid to fund its military and other activities, although the UN stated its monitoring systems were effective. Since mid-May, Israel has allowed a small amount of aid, including medical supplies, to enter.
Medical officials, humanitarian workers, and doctors in Gaza have stated they are overwhelmed by ‘mass casualty incidents’ occurring almost daily, as they try to treat those injured by Israeli fire targeting Palestinians seeking aid.
According to doctors, many of the people they are caring for report being shot while attempting to reach food distribution sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a secretive organization backed by the U.S. and Israel that began distributing food in late May 2025.
Major humanitarian and human rights organizations have called for the immediate closure of GHF, accusing it of ‘trapping two million people in overcrowded, militarized areas where they are exposed to daily gunfire and mass casualties’. Amnesty International has described the group’s activities as a ‘militarized, inhumane, and deadly operation’.
Since the implementation of the new food distribution system, which Israel claims is designed to prevent Hamas from diverting humanitarian aid, Rafah’s hospital in southern Gaza has treated more than 2,200 people with gunshot wounds and recorded over 200 fatalities.
According to UNICEF, the number of malnourished children in Gaza is soaring, with 5,119 children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years hospitalized for severe acute malnutrition in the month of May alone.
