Note: This story contains disturbing images.
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In late July and August 2025, a series of social media posts spread the claim that 27-year-old Palestinian man named Adel Madi had died of starvation and malnutrition.
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A report from Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu and multiple photos from the reputable image bank Getty Images corroborated the claim that Madi died and severe malnutrition was a factor in his death, given his state of emaciation.
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It is important to note that Anadolu quoted someone they identified as Madi’s cousin saying he had hepatitis. Further, the Palestinian reporter who took some of the photographs of Madi also said the man had been ill and had not received care.
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However, we could not locate a death certificate with an official cause of death.
In August 2025, a rumor began to spread that a 27-year-old Palestinian man in Gaza named Adel Madi had died of malnutrition and starvation. Several images of his remains circulated on the internet.
For example, the Palestinian Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and writer Mosab Abu Toha, who at the time of this writing was based in Syracuse, New York, posted (archived) images of the young man on his Facebook account, writing, “I have never seen something like this in my life”:
https://www.facebook.com/mosab.abutoha/posts/pfbid0Ho7A33FrCzhhZ7TY4eCzrsLxD6zZj4EHhxLizo6NkUZ1qQmEs8zPUN7HLBunYYNSl
The July 31, 2025, post had received 5,500 reactions and 3,600 shares, as of this writing.
Other posts on Facebook shared the story and varying images, including one (archived) from a man named Ahmed Abuelreesh, whose Facebook profile page indicated he lived in Brussels, Belgium, but was originally from Gaza City. The profile added he had been a humanitarian worker. Abuelreesh’s post indicated the location at which Madi reportedly died, the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis.
Snopes contacted Abu Toha and Abuelreesh to ask about their sources for the images. We will update this report should they respond.
As we’ll outline below, a report from the Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu corroborated the posts’ claims, as did photographs taken from different angles that were available through the database of the reputable image agency Getty Images. As a result, we deemed the claim that Madi died in Gaza and that malnutrition was a factor in his death true, given his state of emaciation and the lack of any evidence we found to disprove the story.
That said, it was unclear exactly how Madi’s reported hepatitis diagnosis and lack of access to care and drugs contributed to his death, and we could not locate a death certificate with an official cause of death.
Hepatitis as a factor?
On July 31, a report by Anadolu said Madi weighed 15 kilograms (33 pounds) when he died. The article, which did not use the same images that appeared in the above social media posts, corroborated Abuelreesh’s assertion that Madi had died at Nasser Hospital. The article also quoted a man identified as Madi’s cousin, who said Madi had been sick with hepatitis:
He had hepatitis, and his health worsened because of malnutrition, the siege, and despair. We had no access to medicine, food, or clean water. If the crossings had been open and treatment available, Adel would not have ended up like this. His weight kept dropping, and there was nothing we could do. No medicine, no clean water, and no one answered our pleas.
Anadolu’s report featured a photograph of men standing around a white body bag. The photograph was credited to Hani Alshaer, a journalist in Gaza. Also on July 31, 2025, Alshaer posted a video of Madi’s remains in the open body bag on Instagram (archived). The caption under this video indicated that Madi’s illness and lack of access to care played a role in his death, along with malnutrition. The translated caption read:
They are dying of hunger and disease… only in Gaza… / The young man Adel Madi (27 years old) is a victim of malnutrition and the lack of treatment in the #GazaStrip… due to the closure of the crossings.
While it is unclear which type of hepatitis Madi reportedly had, it is important to know that malnutrition can cause hepatitis. Further, advanced liver disease, a complication of hepatitis, can result in malnutrition, as it can cause low appetite and nutrient malabsorption. We could not confirm Madi’s diagnosis. However, it is plausible and even likely that malnutrition would contribute to accelerating the death of a hepatitis patient. The reverse is equally true: Hepatitis could also contribute to accelerating the death of a starving or malnourished person.
Further, more photographs credited to Alshaer appeared in the reputable image bank Getty Images on the same day, though their captions spelled the man’s name differently, as “Adil Mazi.” Such differences in spelling can result from variations in the transliteration of Arabic, the pronunciation and intonation of which changes from region to region.
The situation in Gaza
Expert confirmation of famine conditions in Gaza bolstered the credibility of the claim.
Two days before the posts and report of Madi’s death, the United Nations published a report asserting that experts had found “mounting evidence” of a famine raging in Gaza. Also on July 29, 2025, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) platform said the “worst-case scenario of famine” was now “unfolding in the Gaza Strip.”
The IPC uses a five-phase classification system to determine famine conditions, with Phase 5 being the most severe. Most areas of Gaza, the IPC alerted, had passed the threshold for the fifth phase. One metric for the fifth phase, according to the IPC, was two adults dying of starvation per 10,000 people each day, or four children dying of acute malnutrition per 10,000 people each day.
Further, reliable reports from reputable news outlets multiplied on the famine conditions and vulnerable people in Gaza dying of malnutrition and starvation. In August 2025, Snopes published an in-depth report on what it takes to declare a famine in a crisis zone.
This was not the first claim about starvation in Gaza that we’ve investigated. Previously, we looked into assertions that posts featuring an image of an emaciated boy misleadingly omitted context about a muscular condition the boy suffered from.
Sources:
Alshaer, Hani. “Adil Madi, 27, Dies of Starvation as Gaza Blockade Continues.” Getty Images, 31 July 2025, www.gettyimages.com/search/2/image?agreements=&family=editorial&phrase=hani%20alshaer&sort=best&phraseprocessing=excludenaturallanguage&suppressphrasecorrection=true&recency=daterange&begindate=2025-07-31&enddate=2025-07-31. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025.
IPC ALERT: Worst-Case Scenario of Famine Unfolding in the Gaza Strip IPC ALERT: GAZA STRIP. 29 July 2025, www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_GazaStrip_Alert_July2025.pdf. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025.
“IPC Global Platform.” Www.ipcinfo.org, www.ipcinfo.org/. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025.
Majed, Mohamed, and Tarek Chouiref. “Weighing Only 15 Kg, Gazan Youth Starves to Death under Israeli Siege.” Aa.com.tr, 31 July 2025, www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/-weighing-only-15-kg-gazan-youth-starves-to-death-under-israeli-siege/3647388. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025.
United Nations. “In Gaza, Mounting Evidence of Famine and Widespread Starvation.” UN News, 29 July 2025, news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165517. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025.