Gaza journalist who met with Mamdani admits he buried footage of Israeli hostages being beaten to protect perpatrators
A Gaza journalist who has met with Mayor Mamdani and been honored with a Nobel Peace Prize nomination and a spot on the Time100 list admitted that he buried footage of Israeli hostages being beaten by a Palestinian mob in order to protect the perpetrators.Photographer Motaz Azaiza also revealed that all media in Gaza is controlled by Hamas through a single WhatsApp group — and the terror group will target any journalist who publishes criticism.Azaiza — who has become one of the most famous journalists in Gaza — was in the territory on Oct.
7, 2023, when Hamas marched the hostages taken from Israel through the streets of Gaza, where all hell broke loose.“People got out, watched, beat them, hit them, and I followed them and filmed,” Azaiza told the Taqarrab podcast.“But I did not publish those videos.”“Why? Because I did not want to ruin the lives of the people who were filmed,” the photographer said.
“I understood that Israel would use those videos to identify every person who was there and eliminate them.”“I did not want to be responsible, even indirectly, for the deaths of those people in exchange for a few likes and views online,” he added.Aziza also revealed that “every journalist in Gaza” is in a Hamas-run WhatsApp group called “Smart” that coordinates coverage in Gaza.
One of the Hamas media directors based at the Rafa Crossing ran it, he said.Aziza went on to say that he was targeted by pro-Hamas media — run through that channel — when he showed a video of a Gaza resident cursing Hamas.“Photographers in Gaza have become accustomed to lowering their cameras the moment someone says something bad about Hamas, he said, “because anyone who dares to show reality is persecuted relentlessly.”He said he had to flee the territory after publishing people criticizing Hamas.
He now lives in Qatar.Despite Azaiza withholding the footage of the hostages being beaten as part of his coverage of the war, some of the hostages who we...