The renowned Palestinian photographer Motaz Aziza admitted that he filmed Israeli hostages being abused by the crowd on October 7, 2023, but he did not release the footage so that the perpetrators would not be identified by Israel. The revelation, which made headlines in Israeli media as well as in many Arab outlets, is contained in an extensive interview he gave on journalist Ahmed Bikawi’s “Taqarb” podcast.
Aziza, who has been named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, said he recorded footage that he did not release because he feared Israeli authorities would use it to identify and kill those who appeared in it. “I didn’t want to be responsible, even indirectly, for their deaths, just for a few likes and views,” he said.
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
In the same interview, he also harshly criticized Hamas, even though he described himself as a supporter of “armed resistance,” as he put it. “From October 7 until today, show me a single Palestinian in Gaza who was protected by Hamas’s weapons. No one,” he emphasized.
He also accused the leadership of the terrorist organization of having had the opportunity as early as October 11, 2023, to accept an agreement that would have provided for disarmament, thereby preventing tens of thousands of deaths and the destruction of the Gaza Strip.
The photographer also described an organized mechanism for intimidating journalists via a WhatsApp group, which, he said, was managed by a senior Hamas media official at the Rafah crossing. Journalists’ personal information and phone numbers were posted in the group, so that online activists could launch coordinated attacks against them if they said or wrote anything that upset the organization.
As he reported, photographers in Gaza had learned to immediately put down their cameras when a civilian spoke out against Hamas, knowing that anyone who broadcast such images would be targeted and persecuted “to the bitter end,” as he noted, due to the terrorist organization’s modus operandi.
Aziza, who left Gaza four months after the war began and now lives in Qatar, spoke finally about her deep psychological trauma. “Gaza is the most toxic place in the world. You love it, but it hurts you and destroys you,” he said.
Source: CNA
