Motaz Azaiza, a Gaza-based journalist who has met New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, received a Nobel Peace Prize nomination and was named to the TIME100 list, says he chose not to publish footage showing Israeli hostages being beaten by a Palestinian crowd because he feared exposing those involved to deadly reprisals.
The photographer also alleged that Hamas controls Gaza’s media through a single WhatsApp group and that journalists who publish criticism of the group risk being targeted.
Azaiza, one of the best-known journalists to emerge from Gaza during the war, was in the territory on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas brought hostages captured in Israel through the streets. He said he witnessed crowds surrounding and attacking them.
“People came out, watched them, beat them and struck them. I followed them and filmed,” Azaiza told the Taqarrab podcast.
“But I did not release those videos.”
He explained that he wanted to protect the people visible in the footage rather than expose them publicly.
“I knew Israel could use the videos to identify everyone who was there and eliminate them,” the photographer said.
“I did not want to bear even indirect responsibility for their deaths just for a few likes and views online,” he added.
Azaiza said “every journalist in Gaza” belongs to a Hamas-operated WhatsApp group called “Smart,” which is used to coordinate media coverage across the territory. According to his account, the group was managed by a Hamas media director stationed near the Rafah crossing.
He said Hamas-aligned media outlets also turned against him after he shared video of a Gaza resident openly cursing Hamas.
“Photographers in Gaza have learned to lower their cameras as soon as someone says anything critical of Hamas,” he said, adding that journalists who show what is happening on the ground face relentless persecution.
Azaiza said he ultimately had to leave Gaza after publishing footage of residents criticizing Hamas. He now lives in Qatar.
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Although Azaiza withheld his own footage of the hostage abuse, several survivors who were paraded through Gaza on Oct. 7 later described what they endured.
Itay Regev, who survived the Nova Music Festival massacre, said Hamas transported him and other hostages through Gaza and displayed them to hostile crowds as human “trophies.”
Further outrage followed reports that the body of slain hostage Shani Louk was desecrated, while crowds in Gaza allegedly celebrated and spat on her remains.
Azaiza also condemned Hamas for helping plunge Gaza into a war that has devastated large areas of the enclave and, according to estimates, claimed roughly 73,000 lives.
He criticized the group’s treatment of local journalists who documented the humanitarian crisis, saying the pressure and threats forced many reporters—including himself—to leave Gaza during the opening months of the war.
“You took us back to the Middle Ages,” Azaiza said of Hamas. “You left women in Gaza urinating into plastic buckets. That does not trouble you, but the moment someone criticizes you, that becomes the problem?”
Azaiza was named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2024 for his nearly four month coverage of the war, where he highlighted civilian deaths and the destruction caused by the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
He has also met with with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and even attended his election night watch party last November.
Despite the acclaim, he said he is haunted by what he saw in the Gaza Strip during the war.
“Gaza is the most toxic place in the world. You love it, but at the same time you hate it. You love it, but it hurts you and destroys you,” he said.
“The reality there forced things upon me that I never wanted — the price we pay to satisfy leaders who do not count us is simply unimaginable.”