Gaza Photojournalist Admits Hiding Videos of Israeli Hostages Being Beaten on Oct 7th
22nd September 2026
You’ve probably never heard of Gaza photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and are unaware of an interview he gave earlier this month, where he criticized the Gaza media and Hamas, and at the same time, admitted not publishing photos showing Israeli captives being beaten in Gaza. Aside from The Jerusalem Post and MEMRI’s coverage, you’d be hard pressed to find it anywhere else, certainly not prominently in our liberal media.
Azaiza gave the interview to Ahmed Biqui on the podcast Taqarrab, Azaiza.
According to the Post, “Azaiza said he filmed Israeli hostages being beaten by a Gazan mob on October 7 2023, but chose not to publish the footage because he feared it could put the Palestinians involved at risk. “I saw the vehicle of the Al-Qassam Brigades, and there were Israeli captives there, people got out, watched, beat them, hit them, and I followed them and filmed. But I did not publish those videos. Why? Because I did not want to ruin the lives of the people who were filmed.”
Azaiza said he understood that if he revealed the faces of those beating the Israelis, eventually Israel would eliminate each one, and added, “”I did not want to be responsible, even indirectly, for the deaths of those people in exchange for a few likes and views online.”
Of course Israel has been taking out October 7th leaders and participants one by one for many months now, but a journalist hiding the truth to protect terrorist thugs is exactly the problem that coverage of Israel and Gaza has been suffering for decades. And Azaiza described a much wider journalistic coverup in Gaza