Motaz Azaiza Interview Puts Gaza Media Self Censorship in the Spotlight

One of Gaza’s most internationally recognized photojournalists has raised an uncomfortable question about reporting from the Strip: what happened when the cameras captured Palestinians criticizing Hamas?

Motaz Azaiza, whose photographs and videos from Gaza reached millions of people around the world, discussed the issue in a lengthy interview on Ahmad al Biqawi’s Taqarob Podcast.

The podcast’s own description highlights one of the central questions put to Azaiza: why did he film people expressing their opinions about Hamas while other photographers had become accustomed to turning off their cameras?

That does not prove that every journalist in Gaza worked under Hamas orders. It does, however, provide unusually direct testimony about self censorship around one of the most politically sensitive subjects in Gaza.

And Azaiza’s account does not exist in isolation.

When criticism of Hamas makes the camera go down

Taqarob episode 233 is titled “Who Imposes One Narrative on Gaza?”

Its official description contrasts the Gaza Azaiza knows with “Gaza in the media” and asks why he believes the dominant narrative does not represent the entire picture. Most significantly, it explicitly says the discussion addresses why Azaiza filmed people giving their opinions about Hamas while others had become accustomed to switching off their cameras.

That distinction matters.

A camera does not have to be confiscated for censorship to work. If photographers already know which statements can create problems, they can simply stop recording.

The result is not necessarily fabricated reporting. It can be something subtler: viewers see real suffering, real destruction and real testimony, but some politically dangerous voices are much less likely to reach them.

A reported system of pressure

The Jerusalem Post, reporting on the Arabic language interview, said Azaiza went further.

According to the newspaper’s translation, he described a WhatsApp group called “Smart” that he said was managed by a Hamas media official at the Rafah crossing and was used to organize campaigns against journalists and others who challenged the preferred narrative.

The report says Azaiza described personal details and phone numbers being circulated so activists could attack and harass particular people online. It also attributed to him the claim that photographers had learned to lower their cameras when someone spoke negatively about Hamas.

CPJ found the same pattern independently

What makes Azaiza’s remarks important is the independent evidence already available about the working environment for journalists in Gaza.

In May 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists published an investigation based on interviews with Gaza journalists and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.

Journalist Tawfiq Abu Jarad told CPJ that a Hamas security agent warned him not to cover an anti war demonstration. He said he had previously been beaten and interrogated by Hamas affiliated masked men and was released after promising to stop reporting.

Another journalist told CPJ that Hamas internal security agents sometimes followed journalists while they worked.

Photographer Ibrahim Muhareb said men identifying themselves as police investigators beat him unconscious. Mohammed Abu Aoun said Hamas Internal Security officers detained and beat him after a woman he was interviewing insulted Hamas and its leaders.

The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate went further.

Its president, Nasser Abu Bakr, told CPJ that violations attributed to Hamas authorities and the movement included summonses, interrogations, threats, beatings, arrests, publication bans, interference with content and surveillance.

Deputy head Tahseen al Astal told CPJ that many journalists had begun practicing self censorship to avoid problems with security.

Freedom House has separately reported that Gaza’s media are not free and that journalists have long faced repression from Hamas’s internal security apparatus, including arrests, interrogations and alleged beatings. It also says intimidation by Hamas and other armed groups restricts political expression in Gaza.

Hamas authorities deny interfering with coverage

There is an official denial.

Ismail Al Thawabta, director general of Gaza’s Government Media Office, told CPJ that authorities had received no complaints involving threats over protest coverage or summonses by internal security agents.

He said journalists were able to cover events freely and that Gaza authorities were committed to preventing security agencies from interfering in media content or journalists’ work.

That denial sits alongside testimony from journalists and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate describing precisely such interference.

The October 7 footage Azaiza says he withheld

The Jerusalem Post also reported another striking section of the interview.

According to its translation, Azaiza said he filmed Palestinians assaulting Israeli captives after seeing an Al Qassam Brigades vehicle on October 7, 2023, but chose not to publish the footage because he believed Israel could use it to identify Palestinians visible in the video.

Again, the precise Arabic wording and context have not been independently verified by Israel News Pulse from a full transcript.

But if accurately translated, the account illustrates an important distinction in understanding war reporting.

The question is not only whether an image is genuine.

It is also which genuine images are published, which are withheld, which voices remain audible and which disappear when the camera comes down.

What Azaiza’s interview does and does not prove

Azaiza’s interview does not prove that every Gaza journalist is a Hamas propagandist.

It does not establish that every photograph or report emerging from Gaza was centrally directed.

And it does not prove the claim that ALL journalists belonged to one Hamas controlled media group.

What it does provide is something more defensible.

One of Gaza’s most famous photographers has publicly discussed a media environment in which criticism of Hamas could cause cameras to be turned off. Independent press freedom organizations have separately documented journalists describing intimidation, assault, surveillance, interference and self censorship under Hamas rule.

That matters when interpreting reporting from a territory where independent foreign media access has also been severely restricted and local Palestinian journalists have carried an extraordinary burden of documenting the war, often at enormous personal risk.

The evidence does not justify dismissing everything filmed in Gaza.

It does justify asking a question that receives far less attention:

Not only what did Gaza’s cameras show, but what did journalists learn not to show?