top of page

On the Front Lines: Motaz Azaiza

  • vmedina89
  • Jun 14, 2024
  • 2 min read
ree

The Israel-Palestine conflict is one that has spanned many decades and entire generations. Much destruction and bloodshed has transpired during this long and brutal timeline that was brought to a boiling point once Hamas began its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Since then, the Israeli military has engaged in a relentless retaliation campaign, bombing the Gaza strip, displacing the entirety of the Palestinian population, essentially rendering their home into a concrete wasteland with entire bloodlines and generations of Palestinians wiped out. Amongst the death and destruction stands Motaz Azaiza, a native Palestinian photojournalist who is widely known for his on-the-ground coverage of the conflict in a way that presents it in all of its brutality. Azaiza's largest platform so far is through Instagram, where he currently has 18.1 million followers. Azaiza has since fled Gaza back in January after 108 days of reporting. During these 108 days, Azaiza shared raw footage of Israeli bombings and air strikes and the damage caused by them. He would post videos and images of Palestinian citizens of all ages who were either killed or seriously injured as a result. Most if not all of this coverage requires content and trigger warnings on these platforms due to its gruesome nature. In 2023, Azaiza was included in TIME Magazine's Top 10 photos of that year for a photo he captured of a young Palestinian girl trapped underneath rubble as a result of an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp. Azaiza commented on this photo, saying "“She’s so lucky she survived. What about people who, there was no hole for me to see them and they [were] still stuck under the rubble and they passed with no help.”


ree

Azaiza's use of raw, brutal imagery largely serves as an appeal to emotion on the audience. Such images are effective in creating empathy in the audience, allowing the audience to get a strong sense of their pain and sorrow. Despite this, Azaiza expresses great dissatisfaction in his work, stating “I go out in the day to cover and take pictures, but I hate mentioning what I have been through. I take pictures and record some videos on my phone, I post it and don’t look back to it. It’s not something human. It's 2024 and people are still killing each other by murder and war weapons.” Although he has since fled Gaza, Azaiza continues to travel the world, raising awareness for the plight of Palestinian people and calling for action.


Below, Motaz Azaiza's social media profiles are linked:



[2 images, 3 links, 2 quotations, 427 words].

 
 
bottom of page