Rectangular glasses, crew-cut hair and a black beard, Motaz Azaiza is one of Gaza's best-known faces. For 108 days, the 24-year-old Palestinian photographer documented the suffering of the enclave, filming and broadcasting – at the risk of his life and in real time – images of massacres, forced displacement and humanitarian catastrophe in the narrow strip of land ravaged by the brutal war launched by Israel in retaliation for the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. On January 23, however, the young man with some 18.4 million followers on Instagram announced he was leaving the Gaza Strip.

"This is the last time you'll see me in this heavy stinking jacket," he said in a short video, visibly moved, before taking off his bullet-proof vest and embracing his fellow journalists who were remaining on site. Azaiza then filmed his departure from Al-Arish airport in Egypt for Qatar. This was the first time he had ever boarded a plane in his life, a sign of the imprisonment that Gazans have endured for decades. "Should I be happy?" he wrote on a video filmed above the clouds, revealing the moral dilemma of the few Gazans authorized to leave the enclave, feeling relieved to finally be safe, but also guilty of leaving their loved ones under Israeli bombardment.

The journalist did not explain the reasons for his departure. As early as the end of October 2023, some of his friends and family asked that the international media stop sharing his personal details, for fear that he would be targeted. He said he had received death threats from the Israeli army. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, some 76 Palestinian reporters and media professionals have been killed since October 7, making the war in Gaza the deadliest for the profession in recent history. Israel is being accused of deliberately targeting journalists, a charge its army denies. NGO Reporters Without Borders filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court on December 22, for war crimes committed by the Israeli army against seven Palestinian reporters.

Born in the Deir al-Balah refugee camp in central Gaza, Azaiza holds a degree in English literature from the now-destroyed Al-Azhar University and worked for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. After October 7, he went into freelance journalism in order to alert the world to the ongoing carnage in Gaza, something he described as "genocide." His publications in English have opened a window on this war that the world's media are obliged to cover from a distance, as the Israeli state bans them from entering the Palestinian territory. Like the entire population of Gaza, he has paid a heavy price for the bombardments. Less than a week after they began, on October 12, 2023, he announced that "more than 15 members of his family [had] been murdered in an Israeli air strike." At the beginning of December, he posted a video showing him running with a colleague, out of breath, to escape Israeli tank fire in their direction.

You have 35% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.