Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak6hsyeOy60
Channel: Ahmad Biqawi أحمد البيقاوي
Published: 2026-09-03
Transcribed: 2026-09-18
Speakers: Motaz Azaiza, Ahmad Biqawi
Motaz Azaiza 0:00
But I was a Hamas kid.
Ahmad Biqawi 0:01
You were a Hamas kid.
Motaz Azaiza 0:02
Yeah, I was a Hamas kid, the one putting the headband on his head walking home from school and—
You want the kid who got a slap in a settlement not to be with the armed resistance. And Gaza too. Gaza is the most toxic place in the world. You love it and at the same time you hate it. You love it and it hurts you.
Someone gets out of an ambulance and says, like, "God damn Hamas," and I'm filming him, and the guys around me, they switch their cameras off. Honestly, I couldn't turn my eyes away from him. There's a Qassam jeep, Israeli captives in it, the whole area is standing there, people come down to watch, one hits him, one whacks him, one whatever, and they move on and I'm behind them filming.
Ahmad Biqawi 0:35
Those scenes, you didn't publish them.
Motaz Azaiza 0:37
I didn't publish them, no, I didn't. Why? There's one called Smart, Hamas media runs it. Its manager was the media director of the Rafah crossing. The media director at the Rafah crossing. And this one's saying they jumped him.
Ahmad Biqawi 0:48
Are you exaggerating? Be precise, because this is work that isn't journalists'.
Motaz Azaiza 0:51
Actually — yeah, God rest his soul, he's dead now — I mean, tanks are rolling in on the guy, and the guy's telling me, come here Motaz, if you cut one word out of the video I'll slice your face open. I told him, fine, I'll say whatever you want. I went in, I met Abu Mazen, and he was watching me — Abu Jihad, Hussein al-Sheikh — saying to the guy next to him, like, Motaz isn't Hamas.
Over the past two years. A killing wish that — God, let me go to sleep and not wake up. Right. A wish to die.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:32
Motaz, welcome, you light the place up.
Motaz Azaiza 1:35
Welcome to you, habibi.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:36
First thing — there's a fresh fight going on right now, blowing up on social media. There's Shabjdeed, Ousan Levan and all that, and the Palestinian people's press.
Motaz Azaiza 1:43
Nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with me. That's it, I've pulled out of all the fights. My head hurts.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:52
Me, I'm listening, sitting there watching, and I'm thinking, how lovely, these are good-old-days problems, like any other country's problems. I mean, two artists, each one's got a concert and wants a bigger crowd, wants to do more marketing, and so on.
Motaz Azaiza 2:04
God willing, may these be the biggest problems we've got. Right. But the problem is — honestly, when I saw it, I don't get what the word "diss" means, or "diss", I don't get what it means. It's the first time I've heard it. And at the same time, man, people are dying. It's shameful. It's shameful, seriously, seriously.
And I've ended up with a lot of problems with Palestinians. My problems with Palestinians have piled up. You know what I mean? Everyone thinks he's the one who's right. And that's something that bothers me. So, step back, I pull back, and you lot sort it out among yourselves.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:39
But we've always been like that — the Palestinian is the one who's right. I mean, I sit down with you and my narrative is the right one.
Motaz Azaiza 2:46
That's exactly the problem. You know what I mean? That's the problem.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:50
Where did you discover this? When you travelled. When you travelled.
Motaz Azaiza 2:55
Yeah.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:56
Okay, before you travelled and before the war happened. Okay, if we're going to start from a point — a point like, the kids, childhood — when they used to ask you as a kid, what's your dream, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Motaz Azaiza 3:08
A pilot.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:10
A pilot, huh? Yeah, that was it.
Motaz Azaiza 3:11
I wanted to be a pilot.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:16
And you know, pilot is something all the kids in the world have in common. But now, in your case, if — if I can ask you a question, to go deeper into the answer. Why a pilot, Motaz? Because with you everything has to be different. Nothing can just be ordinary. Why a pilot, Motaz?
Motaz Azaiza 3:31
Since I was little — I mean, when I grew up my family always used to tell me about the plane they got me, the one that flies on a remote control, when I was small, so back then, that's it, I loved that plane of mine, so it's normal, like any kid. Okay, I don't have to be all that different. I like, I like being different, but I don't always have to be different.
I wanted to be a doctor. Only I was in the humanities stream, so it didn't work out for me. So I went and volunteered with the Red Crescent and did first-responder and first-aid training and all that. So I love that field, the medical one. But in the end, thank God, I came out a photojournalist and turned into the Motaz I am today.
Ahmad Biqawi 4:21
And how different is the Motaz of today from that Motaz who wanted to be a pilot?
Motaz Azaiza 4:27
A lot. A lot.
Ahmad Biqawi 4:30
The pilot period. What year were you born? 1999. 1999. So the pilot period was 2006, 2005.
Motaz Azaiza 4:37
Yeah, 2005, 2006, that period.
Ahmad Biqawi 4:42
So you don't actually have any memory of the Second Intifada.
Motaz Azaiza 4:47
Man, I do remember — you know what I remember? I became aware around 2005. I was 6. Me and my dad on the roof.
Ahmad Biqawi 4:53
A little before the elections.
Motaz Azaiza 4:55
Yeah, me and my dad on the roof, tanks, at our neighbours' houses they were bulldozing their land, and my dad's crouching down trying to see the tanks, and I'm standing up wanting to see the tanks, and the shooting's going on.
And what I remember even more is a guy slapping me over a swing in Kfar Darom, in the Kfar Darom settlement. When the Jews withdrew from it. So we went — the settlers withdrew, we went to have a look. There were swings inside the settlement. First time I'd gone into the settlement. I remember that. And suddenly some guy slapped me and shoved me off the swing, unscrewed it, took it and walked off. So that — and the place was packed, people collecting blanks, and there's police, people setting up floodlights and seeing what's in the settlement. So that's my childhood, that's what I remember.
Ahmad Biqawi 5:40
So that's the first slap.
Motaz Azaiza 5:41
The first slap, the Palestinian one, the first slap.
Ahmad Biqawi 5:44
Yeah — was there a second slap? Yeah, slaps. Do you count them? Come on, let's count.
Motaz Azaiza 5:48
Count with me. When was the second slap? The second slap, my friend. Walking home from school. Fifth-grade exams, roughly. So I'm walking from the school and the shelling starts around us, in the 2008–2009 war, the first war, when they hit all the police headquarters. So I remember the first terror of shelling on that scale.
I mean, there are kinds of slaps — a Palestinian slap, an Israeli slap, a slap of some other sort; there are a lot.
Ahmad Biqawi 6:28
I mean, we're not in the context of scientific research here, so the answers can be random. Just the first — the second slap you can recall right now.
Motaz Azaiza 6:37
The second slap I can recall? The day of the coup, or what they call the Hasm, the decisive action. We were at a wedding hall, a hall called Masaya I think, on the Gaza corniche in Sheikh Ijlin, and there's the sound of shooting and they fired an RPG — Hamas guys, at the wedding hall — and the power was cut, so I'm heading out, I want to run and watch the shooting, and ambulances stopped, a car stopped, they're killing people, people shooting each other. So I'm heading out — I'm 7, I'm 8 years old — I'm running out happy, the sound of the shooting and people running and people screaming.
And suddenly there's this — it's not a slap, it's a full five-finger one — from my dad across my face, he slapped me that day, and to this day, to this day, every time I remember it I feel it, I even remember the feeling of it. But it was just a slap out of fear, because the shooting was straight at the hall. And I remember they brought us a bus, packed us all into it and got us out.
Ahmad Biqawi 7:40
Here you're talking 7 years old, 8 years old.
Motaz Azaiza 7:43
8 years old, yeah.
Ahmad Biqawi 7:45
You know, most of the friends I know from Gaza — nobody from that generation, '99, 2000; the youngest anyone I was close to, who was close to me, was born in '95. So in terms of memory in Gaza, I think every 3 or 4 or 5 years there's a completely different consciousness.
You're telling me now that even the relationship with Hamas, or your view of Hamas, started from 2005, 2006, 2007, or even after 2000.
Motaz Azaiza 8:16
But I was a Hamas kid.
Ahmad Biqawi 8:18
You were a Hamas kid.
Motaz Azaiza 8:19
I was the Hamas kid who puts the headband on his head walking home from school and—
Ahmad Biqawi 8:22
You were a Hamas kid, meaning you'd put the headband on your head because everyone puts the headband on, or what?
Motaz Azaiza 8:28
They sell them at the school gate for pennies, so you wear it, and Hamas and all that, and rockets and weapons. As a Palestinian kid — of course, what else would I love at that stage of my life. And at the same time I used to go memorise Qur'an at the mosque and so on. So I leaned more towards their direction, until I grew up and became aware and discovered that no — what's on the inside isn't what's on the outside.
Ahmad Biqawi 8:57
The stage you're talking about, is it the stage where the mosques are social circles, or did you actually go in with them, were you inside Hamas circles, from a social place?
Motaz Azaiza 9:13
Yeah, from prayer, memorising Qur'an, and at the same time, after we finish memorising Qur'an we'd sit in a circle and you introduce your name, and the sheikh says to me, like, what's your name? And I say, Motaz. No, your name is Mu'tazz Billah — the memoriser Mu'tazz Billah — even me, that's it, a whole new world, Qur'an and religion. And you, as a kid, your dad's trying — well, he memorises Qur'an, he's memorised Juz' Amma in a year, you should go memorise — and that's it, over the summer holiday. So, normal, like any kid from Gaza in that period.
But I've always been a curious person, I like to understand and to know, I like to argue. I like to push back. I like to ask. No, I don't feel everyone's right. You can't all be right. Not everyone who gives an opinion is right. Not everyone who says something is right. So it has to be—
Ahmad Biqawi 10:06
Is that an awareness you came to when you got older, or was your behaviour like that even as a kid?
Motaz Azaiza 10:10
Behaviour when I was little — I mean, I'm someone advice works on, a bit; when I'm in the wrong, I make mistakes, I learn from mistakes, I say, yeah, honestly, that was a problem.
Ahmad Biqawi 10:21
And this stage you're talking about, when you were one of the mosque kids. Which mosque were you at? You know, in Gaza the mosque is an address.
Motaz Azaiza 10:29
At first I was at the old town mosque — it's a mosque in our town, but it wasn't Hamas-affiliated at first, then they took it over. Then there's al-Ansar mosque, which was where civil defence used to be, back in the PA days. Then they built al-Ansar mosque, that one was more Hamas, and there's the fight every Eid — the Darawi mosque, we've got the Darawi mosque, it doesn't pray out in the open.
Every Eid, people from Hamas would come and shut the mosques. Especially Eid al-Adha — you're not allowed to pray in the mosques, you have to pray out in the open. And the sheikh of the mosque, I think he's a Hanbali or one of the dervishes, I don't know what they're called. So he refuses. So that fight, the whole neighbourhood has to know about it, that this guy spited them and got people to pray in the mosque, not out in the open. So these are the kinds of stories that—
Ahmad Biqawi 11:23
And your household, Motaz, originally — your family, your political environment, is Fatah.
Motaz Azaiza 11:28
Most of my family, yeah, Fatah. I grew up — my father was military intelligence. A food storekeeper. I mean, his brother, God rest him, when the PA first came, spoke to, like, Yasser Arafat, and got his brother a job, the way everyone did, that sort of thing. My dad worked for the PA. He used to take me, when I was little, to the intelligence posts.
And once, I remember, suddenly my mum was screaming. I found my dad smashed up. Turned out the Israeli artillery had shelled a post in Deir al-Balah that day. So he was wounded — they hit the post with artillery, I think, this is a long time ago. And, uh, that's it. And when Hamas came, my dad was broken, so he just sat at home the whole time. He couldn't believe it.
Ahmad Biqawi 12:17
But when you say the environment — the environment is Fatah socially, or just as PA employees? Or, like, hardcore Fatah?
Motaz Azaiza 12:26
No, for instance, we don't have hardcore ones in the family. Few of them you'd find hardcore. You know what I mean? Most of them were PA employees and their loyalty was to their jobs. And Abu Ammar's picture has to be up in our house. And the story of Abu Mazen, that his finger got cut off at the Deir al-Balah club when they came, him on the door, because he's from Deir. So maybe that's why he won't touch Deir al-Balah, I don't know. So these are the stories you have to hear.
So I never had, like, any hard-line belonging to any party or faction. I mean, you don't even feel that I'm fixed on a principle when it comes to the factions — I can change, no problem. Wherever there's a gathering, we'd go.
Ahmad Biqawi 13:09
But this environment you grew up in, isn't it the kind of environment where a person has no option not to be partisan?
Motaz Azaiza 13:19
How could he not be partisan? You wake up and find his friends coming from—
Ahmad Biqawi 13:22
No, no, I mean there's no choice. There's no choice, meaning a person necessarily has to be partisan — if you don't sit with these lot, you'll sit with those lot. I mean, the category of independent people is very limited. In our Palestinian reality, and in Gaza more so.
Motaz Azaiza 13:36
Because all the parties work on the young. They're not interested in you as an adult, a grown, mature person. They come to you when you're a teenager, when you're young. So each one starts convincing you that he's the one who's right, that he'll get you into paradise, or he'll give you a salary or whatever, or that he'll liberate Palestine, that he's the resistance fighter, that he's this.
So each one, and you're young and you've got nothing to do — and we're not, I mean, Palestine isn't Switzerland, where there's a system, you have to go to school, there's an educational system you take and that's it. No, even at school, even though there's a Palestinian curriculum, the teacher himself who's teaching you, sometimes, at some point, tells you things that are the opposite of what's in the curriculum.
So no, there are a lot of differences in my life as a kid from Gaza, as a kid. I mean, my school was called Rudolf Walther — a German built it, folks, Arafat built this school. So from first grade to sixth grade my class was mixed, girls and boys. Until the coup happened and Hamas came.
So one day the school term ended, we went home, three months later we came back and found a big wall in the middle of the school that split the school in two. That is, half the school girls and half the school boys, and you're not allowed to go over to that side. And at first they put up something like burlap or plastic for us, until they built the whole wall. So I'm sort of standing there looking at the girls of the class I'd been with. Dima, Shams, what's her name — like, bye, goodbye. And they don't understand, because I'm in a mixed school.
What grade were you in at this point? I was in sixth grade. Seventh, we became boys only. That's it. So from first grade to sixth grade we were mixed. So, normal, I take a sharpener from Dima, I take an eraser from Aseel, fine, I talk to them, and normal, you deal with a girl as a girl, fine.
And suddenly we found a wall between us, and we found there was a new curriculum, and the view of the girl became more — I don't know, the word's a bit heavy, but maybe we started to feel the atmosphere around you that your view of women is more sexual, and you, even from— and you're little — no, you're not allowed to look at her, not allowed to see her, not allowed whatever. You feel that it's haram, haram, shameful, shameful, haram. So that whole thing came in.
Where were you hearing all this? At school, from the boys, from the teachers. Suddenly the teachers changed on us — I mean, I knew all my women teachers, all my teachers. And suddenly new people — who are these? New people.
Ahmad Biqawi 16:15
Here you're talking about when the teachers who were with the PA left after Hamas took over. So Hamas actually brought in teachers to fill their absence. Yeah, okay.
See, these stories, it's the first time I'm hearing them — these stages, for a child, I mean; we saw them as witnesses. But for a child, how does it affect his consciousness? The scene you're describing — in my life it was Oslo, I mean, when Oslo was signed I saw the teachers fighting, do we put on "Fida'i" or "Mawtini". Do we salute Abu Ammar or not. Do we talk about Oslo or not. So you're talking about the same—
Motaz Azaiza 16:55
The same thing. Back in those days it was, uh, the Palestinian national anthem, you had to stand up, and they'd come down on you and so on. When Hamas came, we stopped having a national anthem; you'd walk along in line and they'd play you, "Islamiyya, Quds, we are for the sacrifice, with our right hand—" What happened? That became the—
Ahmad Biqawi 17:11
But at the German school it was like that? Yeah, the German side of it was gone.
Motaz Azaiza 17:16
The German just built it and left; it became, that's it, Ottoman.
Ahmad Biqawi 17:19
Yeah, but the name — I mean, the students, you know, "Islamiyya Quds" like that, in a school named after, like, its founder, a trust.
Motaz Azaiza 17:27
Do get as much out of me as you can, because seriously, genuinely, I'm speaking here about my own experience as a kid from Gaza. Someone else's experience could be very different. And there's a lot that's different.
Ahmad Biqawi 17:41
But why do you want me to get it out? I mean, you're telling me, get it out of you. And on the phone earlier, because I felt you had a desire to share.
Motaz Azaiza 17:48
Because, man, we've always been misunderstood. And nobody ever gives us a chance to be heard except when there's a war. Then you find everyone running to you. The moment the war ends, or it stops being a hot topic, nobody's interested any more. You're actually cheap. So that's why I—
Honestly, I try not to leave any empty space, especially the Palestinian space, more than anything — for them to hear from us, because, for example, I've never seen myself attack anyone in the West Bank and tell him you're a spy and a traitor, out of nowhere, whatever my opinion is. Honestly, I turn a blind eye to the PA and I turn a blind eye to Hamas, or he does whatever he wants, but then suddenly you find Gaza — man, you're dying, and you find people cursing you for speaking while you're dying — so I want to understand where the other Palestinian got the authority over the Gazan Palestinian — who gave you the right? So you have to hear from us what our life is, or what you understand, or how you see it.
Ahmad Biqawi 18:50
And you, as Motaz, you're one of those figures — I don't know, in the conversation now we'll see more — but I actually feel that nothing passes: you say something, or clear your throat, or post a picture, without it being analysed or framed. That thing, that thing actually sometimes makes a person feel misunderstood and wronged.
Motaz Azaiza 19:15
True.
Ahmad Biqawi 19:15
Does that feeling come to you, that you're actually — man, with this whole thing — that's not what I meant, I mean, how long will I keep proving myself, or, what did I mean.
Motaz Azaiza 19:24
The problem is, if it were just about me, honestly I'd say fine, that's it, the thing is systematic but it's against me and that's that — but actually any voice that comes out and speaks against the narrative that's been dominant for 30 years gets attacked, but maybe because I have more followers, more followers, so they're scared of my voice spreading further, so they have to attack more — so really I'm not saying anything wrong, I'm not betraying, not spying, not insulting anyone; I'm talking about my life and what happened in it, I'm not saying what's right and wrong, I'm saying what's for me and what's against me, because there's logic and there's obsession; there are obsessed people who want to present you as a hero who doesn't die, or who does everything and in the end asks for death and wants to die — and, man, none of us ever
said he wants to die, I mean nobody said he wants to, or that we die as a sacrifice for others; why would we die as a sacrifice for others? I mean, honestly, Ahmad, the Gazan himself, even — and I'm sorry that I single out the Gazan, seriously, I should be someone who brings all Palestinians together, with a patriotic spirit and so on — but even regardless of my views against Hamas and all that, man, we were left on our own in a disgraceful way, and at the same time when you go and say it to Hamas, they tell you the other Palestinians and the Arabs let us down and so on; you go and say it to the other Palestinian, they say, well, whenever we try to get involved Hamas treats us like traitors; you say it to the Arabs, they say, well, Hamas curses us; you say — well, everyone has a point of view, and the only loser is the son of Gaza, the Gazan citizen, the Palestinian from Gaza, because once
I said it in front of them, when I met Abu Mazen, you tell him, I'm a Gazan, and he says to me, you're a Palestinian; I said, fine, a Palestinian from Gaza, gladly — I mean, do I deny my Palestinian-ness? But I'm proud of being from Gaza, because, to be fair, to be fair, regardless of all the Palestinian political circumstances, I've never seen anyone sacrifice what the people of Gaza sacrificed for the country, whether by choice or not; I mean, I've never seen anyone choose to lose his life and his family's lives and so on; I'm sure that 99% of the people of Gaza, everything was forced on them and nobody ever consulted them; you know when they consult them, or make them feel they matter? When someone wants something from them or wants to whitewash himself with them; then we become important, but now this war's over, go down and look at the people of
Gaza wherever they are; thank God if anyone even looks at them — seriously, we're short of people with the loyalty to stand with us and to ask; but you, today, this is after two and a half years of the genocide.
I mean, they're not carrying you off your land, because you made your life cheap; they see your life as cheap; I mean, what makes a woman of Palestinian-American origin — I've come out of a genocide, and I come to tell my narrative and talk about people's pain and post my pictures to expose Israel — and thank God I exposed Israel to the world in a frightening way — but hang on, the first thing when she sees me she says to me, why did you leave Gaza? Why didn't you die there? How could you leave?
Ahmad Biqawi 22:53
But surely she didn't say to you, why didn't you die there.
Motaz Azaiza 22:55
I swear to God.
Ahmad Biqawi 22:55
But in effect that's what she said to you, why didn't you die there.
Motaz Azaiza 22:59
I swear to God, she says, why did you leave Gaza.
Ahmad Biqawi 23:00
I know that — you know, in the same period there was a lot of talk about steadfastness and about staying in Gaza.
Motaz Azaiza 23:08
Yeah.
Ahmad Biqawi 23:09
I mean, even the ones who took up that discourse, when they got out — they exported the discourse and adopted it, and when they got out they puffed themselves up too; so for the people outside, part of them maybe, this lady, for her whoever leaves has a problem, why? Because it's not normal for people to leave, but she has no idea what people actually live through there; but the idea that she said that to you — she herself doesn't want to die — I mean, she's actually aware, even.
Motaz Azaiza 23:30
She actually asked me, she says, why did you leave Gaza? I told her, I don't want to die. She says to me, does anyone leave death in Gaza? Why didn't I tell her, lady, if you want to die, go, you've got an American passport, fly to Ben Gurion, land at Ben Gurion, hug any soldier, do whatever you want, sister, and be martyred, kill yourself — I mean, go easy on me — and why, when I choose safety or life, did I feel I'd done something wrong, or that it lessens your Palestinian-ness? I swear that's actually the feeling; I mean, when you get out
of there, at first you find the whole world above your head and with you and Gaza and all that; then they make you feel you've lessened your Palestinian-ness; I mean, the Gazan has become tied to sacrifice; you lose, you get wrecked, you're a Gazan, and if you come out and become like them, in the safety they live in, you look privileged.
Ahmad Biqawi 24:16
Okay, before that — on Taqarub podcast we let the guest introduce himself however he likes. But I have a question, I mean, I'm curious, before that. Was there something you could have done in these three years, or a different path, that could have made everyone love you — as opposed to the feelings today, where you have a big consensus around you, and the state of disagreement among some Palestinians who love you, or the Palestinians who see you negatively — so that there'd be a consensus. Was there a different path, or were there things you could have done, whether consciously or unconsciously, that could have created a completely different path for you? There is, there is. Take a breath, man, take a breath. That's a historic answer.
Motaz Azaiza 25:06
There were a million paths.
Ahmad Biqawi 25:09
We're not in a hurry.
Motaz Azaiza 25:10
Instead of one path I had ten. Okay. But maybe I could have made everyone happy with me. But I wouldn't have been happy with myself. And honestly, honestly — whatever I am, consider me the worst person in the world. But when I come to sleep, when I put my head on the pillow, I'm at ease, my conscience is clear — and I had a lot of options.
I mean, let me tell you, even in the beginning, when I was filming and documenting events, I wasn't focused on, like, how angry people were at Hamas and at its government. I was focused, I swear, only on Israel. It wasn't even, I mean, it wasn't even on my mind. But I'm like anyone who's in touch with reality — in the end you touch reality, and I see reality.
So one time I'm filming, there were even a few journalists with me, and I'm filming displaced people, and one of them was carrying a bird — after he'd crossed an Israeli checkpoint, after being searched and after all of it, and he's left his house behind him, displaced, and he hasn't left his bird. So that's one of those pictures — this person is holding on to life; if you care about an animal, you care about a plant, whatever, then you're a human being, you know? Normal, natural, like anyone in the world. So the thing grabbed me as a journalist, I wanted to document it, so I told him, lift your bird up so I can film, and I'm filming him and he says, God damn you, Hamas — that's all. Out of nowhere — I mean, I had no idea what he was going to say in the first place, it wasn't in my head that he'd say anything, no.
And I mean, it's normal, I don't see it as a curse; in the end he's just calling on God against them, the way my mother sometimes says it about me, it's normal. So, fine, and I posted it like any— I mean I upload it to stories and that's it. Suddenly I found the world had turned upside down. People calling, what's this you've posted, delete it. I told them, delete what? What's wrong with it? What's going to happen? It's against the resistance.
I said to him, resistance, what resistance? I mean, in the end, I've lived 24 years in Gaza. I've never in my life heard anyone call Hamas the resistance. I mean, in Gaza we don't call Hamas the resistance. Normally it's Qassam, Hamas, al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Saraya al-Quds.
Ahmad Biqawi 27:27
You use different names — Qassam is the resistance and Hamas is the government side. I mean, the government is the government.
Motaz Azaiza 27:33
That's what we say to the media when we're asked about it, to show that we—
Ahmad Biqawi 27:36
No, day to day, when you actually talk, when you want to say so-and-so is with the resistance, you mean so-and-so is with Qassam or so-and-so is with Saraya, right?
Motaz Azaiza 27:44
They're the same thing. I mean, whatever else we say, forget it. I mean, I'm telling you, I said this before, I did the same thing. No, in the end, when you go to Hamas and you want something from them, they bring Qassam down on you, they'll come and get you. It's one and the same, no question. So I just filmed it like that, and honestly it wasn't on my mind, I didn't mean to prove a point. No, he just said it and I posted it, there's nothing in it.
That same day I found there were people — this was in December. Sixteen, seventeen guys in Amman at al-Rabiya or I don't know where, standing in the freezing cold, cursing me, a demonstration against me. And at the same time an Israeli captain is calling me, sitting there chatting with me, with the threats and all that, you know? Go here, don't come here, go there, like that. And I'm sleeping in the street at the hospital next to a fridge — not a fridge, next to the death tent. The tent of the martyrs in pieces.
So I'm in those conditions and suddenly I find people going out in a demonstration because I filmed someone saying God damn Hamas — I mean, Hamas is supposed to be responsible toward us. You're the one, like we said, you're my actual ruler, so my safety is on your neck. You see — imagine the nerve. And at the same time the journalist in Gaza has always wanted to show himself only in the hero image, so nobody comes after him. Who came out? Who came out in a demonstration? I don't know, I swear I don't know, I don't know them at all. Just people standing there.
Ahmad Biqawi 29:08
No, you definitely know what— I mean, you...
Motaz Azaiza 29:09
I swear I don't know.
Ahmad Biqawi 29:10
In the end, a demonstration during the war — was it something organised, or just a group of people—
Motaz Azaiza 29:15
They're not a demonstration, they're not organised, just people — how, because on the same day it got picked up— How many guys were chanting? How many actually chanted? And Avichay Adraee took the video and posted it on his page. Showing, look, the Gazan citizen is with us, you know? That's how he plays it. So I was amazed at how unaware these people are.
I mean, when the Israeli occupation uses something I documented as a journalist on the ground, uses it for its own benefit, that doesn't mean I'm with it and I agree with it — and why did you take my opinion away from me? I mean, it's become either black or— —black or white, that's what it's become. I mean, you don't get to have an opinion. That's it, you have to stick to the existing narrative. People, I'm just someone living on the ground and I have an opinion. Who gets to deny me my opinion? I mean, I'm denied my pills, denied travel, denied electricity, denied water, denied safety — even my opinion you deny me.
So I found that people don't understand. I didn't realise people were this clueless. You know? And then suddenly you film, you document, whatever, you post that you're fed up with the situation. Don't waste your reward, be patient, paradise awaits you. Some guy tells you that, out of nowhere. Yeah. And suddenly the sheikhs you grew up listening to, I swear— Fed up with what? With the situation, with what I'm in.
Ahmad Biqawi 30:40
Okay, where, where did you write it? I mean, in response — what you're in, in response to this protest.
Motaz Azaiza 30:43
On stories, Instagram or social media and so on. No, no, not in response to the protest, just generally. Suddenly you find people don't like you complaining. Yeah. And suddenly you find social media, like — I grew up listening to Quran by al-Sudais, say. Suddenly you find, I swear, Gaza exposed everyone — al-Sudais signed on the dotted line and took the money, and some woman, say, a prostitute by trade, turns out to be more honourable than the sheikhs they say lead the prayers in Mecca, with their praying and fasting. So what is this? What— what is this stuff you're saying? What's going on? So they started telling you Gaza is the measure. Okay, fine, of course, your standing with what's right is always a measure for me to know whether you're good or not.
But at the same time we started being used, you know? A lot of people started exploiting us, exploiting our pain for their interests, their agendas, their ideas. And you, being a hot topic, you're easy to use. And unfortunately a lot of people in Gaza help it along, because he just wants to live, you know? And there are a lot of hustlers who help rewrite history in favour of certain people or certain agendas, just to make a bit of money. That's it.
Ahmad Biqawi 31:55
I'm going to unpack this whole relationship, because there's something—
Motaz Azaiza 31:58
I feel like we're getting tangled up with each other.
Ahmad Biqawi 32:01
There's something unfair in the very idea that if Avichay uses somebody's video or somebody's picture, then that person effectively becomes — everything in that content there is wrong, somehow. And for a long time I've seen this idea as if we have to keep our opinions way off to one side, even though we see how the occupation uses internal opinions, internal disagreements, for its own benefit. But that doesn't mean we don't express them. But there's also something layered here, and I think a big part of it rests on your personal path. I mean, this personal profile that gets mixed up with your upbringing and your view of Hamas and your view of Hamas's rule, or how you see them. And which I think was a basic part of — I mean, in the different wars and on 7 October, that accumulation is what made you read the event with a different eye from all the Palestinians out there, whether outside, or the Hamas supporters inside Gaza or in Palestine generally.
My friend, on Taqarub we let the guest introduce himself however he likes. I mean, look, this is the thing you're after. I mean, the world's not going anywhere, good evening and all that — we like the details of how someone grew up, and we like to get to know the human being apart from all the labels people dress him in without asking him, and apart from all the search engines that recycle the same definitions and the same details. So this is your space. Tell us. Go ahead.
Motaz Azaiza 33:32
I, sir, am Motaz Hilal Mohammed Azaiza, from — I was born in Shifa Hospital, 30/1/1999. They were supposed to name me Mohammed, but my father, when he went to get the Macintosh from a supermarket in Gaza, ran into his uncle — his uncle had a son in America who'd died in a car accident, named Motaz. So my cousin says to — to my father, swear to God, your sister's son has had a boy, name him Motaz after your son. So he went and gave him 500 dinars. So he went and named me Motaz, he said, Motaz it is. So I'm Motaz.
And I was always — at school I was a peaceful kid, I wasn't someone who got into trouble and fights, you know? And since I was my parents' first child — it took them two years to have me — so at first I was really spoiled. So I grew up in our neighbourhood. And I saw my world as my neighbourhood and my school.
And like anyone from Gaza — going from Deir al-Balah to Gaza City was like travelling abroad, like you're going somewhere far away. Right. Until I grew up and started seeing Gaza as a small space, and I'd walked all over it. I caught the yellow cars, the seven-seater Mercedes. That's something, honestly, I'm glad I caught.
Ahmad Biqawi 34:54
How did you catch those? What year did you catch them?
Motaz Azaiza 34:59
Little, like five, six years old, seven, eight. I mean, they lasted until 2010.
Ahmad Biqawi 35:02
They lasted until 2005, 2006? Yeah, of course, they lasted, they lasted.
Motaz Azaiza 35:07
Yeah, and the— no, what do you mean, they lasted until my first year of university, 2016, they were still around. They lasted. Yeah, because when the crossing closed, when there were problems at the crossing in the Egypt days and the Sinai events, all the cars that used to work the crossing started working inside, on the line. But they ran into a problem: first, they burn a lot of diesel. Second, you get in the car going to a lecture at 8, you leave the house at 7, you need half an hour on the road and half an hour to grab a drink or something. The driver, if he doesn't load up eight, eight passengers, he won't move. So you're forced to sit and wait, and wait. You tell him, move; and he only moves on his own terms, he tells you, pay up. I say, why should I pay for seven passengers? Why should I pay 40 shekels for him? So yeah, I caught that.
And anyway, I was always an ambitious person, I wanted to be something, to do something. I didn't want to be a dependent. I didn't want to be someone who does nothing. I've relied on myself since I was little. I remember in 2014, the whole place was at war, and I was filling coupons, rice and sugar and whatever, working, making 80 shekels a day. Fifteen years old, making 80 shekels a day. I mean, who's better than you? So I worked. Anyway, the point is I was working. I'd kind of fallen in love with the camera thing, like I wanted to shoot.
So I'd try to get hold of a camera through someone I knew, scrounge a camera off somebody, go to a photo studio — come on, let's shoot weddings — and they'd look down on me, they wouldn't let me hold the camera, they'd say, go get us tea and then we'll see. So I was trying to find myself; I've always had a lot of acquaintances but not many friends, I don't know, maybe I can't make friends, or I like being on my own, or I get bored quickly, I don't know.
So I grew up in childhood, and the moment I started getting older I took on a really big responsibility, I took responsibility for my family, my siblings and all that, I became responsible for the house.
Ahmad Biqawi 37:22
When you say getting older, how old are we talking? Like 16, 17?
Motaz Azaiza 37:28
Yeah, so—
Ahmad Biqawi 37:31
During Corona. You were still— Corona.
Motaz Azaiza 37:33
At Corona I was 24. So, sir, I was someone who wanted to be something but didn't know where to start.
Ahmad Biqawi 37:45
What does it mean, you were responsible for your family? I was supporting them. I mean, responsible for whom? What was required of you? My mother, my two sisters, my father, my uncle who lived with us.
Motaz Azaiza 38:00
The usual — food and drink, electricity and so on.
Ahmad Biqawi 38:04
Did this, this, did this build up on you, or was it from the age of 16?
Motaz Azaiza 38:10
It started building up on me because, say, I wanted a lot of things for myself that I couldn't — that my family couldn't provide for me, so I'd go and work to get them. Suddenly your family start leaning on you for everything — he manages himself, so of course he'll manage us.
And most PA employees in Gaza, with all that sitting at home, became — sorry for the word — a lot of them behaved badly, or most of them got into the habit of going and taking a loan, this refund thing, taking a loan, that's it. Okay, why the loan? I don't know, to start a project and it flops, you know? So most of the people with financial problems ended up being PA employees, because with all the sitting around they don't work, a lot of them weren't allowed to work, so they brought a psychological crisis on themselves, you know? So most— PA employees — people hear 'PA employee' and think he's rich, but no, he's broke; on payday he goes and there's only 200 shekels, he's in debt. Most of the country is like that, it's hard.
And they treat the bank as if it's the cause of the problem, you know? Like, he goes and takes a loan, then the bank comes after him to repay the loan, and he starts cursing Bank of Palestine and the rest of them, of course. But what's it got to do with the bank, what's it got to do with the bank that I took a loan? Yeah.
Ahmad Biqawi 39:27
So you're sitting here telling me that part, part of the responsibilities you had, even at an early age, was also paying off loans.
Motaz Azaiza 39:34
Sort of, sort of. And I worked in a shawarma place. The first time, the first day I worked in a shawarma place, I was lifting the skewer and the whole thing fell on the floor. And I didn't have the normal life, I mean my childhood or my teens, where you just go out with your friends and mess around. And I was the eldest, so all the responsibility was on me, in a way, and I liked it. I mean, it rode me so I rode it, you know? That's how I want to put it. So I became—
Ahmad Biqawi 40:07
How?
Motaz Azaiza 40:09
Like, right up until before the war, I'd be working at something, and on a Thursday everyone's out having a night out, and you'd find me in Metro on Shuhada Street, the mall or the supermarket, doing the shopping for the house, taking it and heading home, you know? So it became— for me, that was the normal thing, that was the natural thing — which isn't natural. But I was proud of it and I loved it. And God provided for me a lot, a lot, provided for me a lot, a lot.
And I didn't see that provision as — the provision came because a lot of people started leaning on me and became my responsibility. And Motaz grew up, the one who wanted — who wanted to travel, wanted to sing, wanted to shoot and all that, wanted to work at the United Nations or the UN in Gaza, at UNRWA, say. So he grew up and was genuinely dealing with a really big responsibility, bigger than my age, not required of me, not something I should have been carrying yet. So I had a conflict: do I follow my dream while I'm carrying the responsibility.
So one day during Corona I went to shoot a news story about the Rafah crossing, about the people stuck at the Rafah crossing. And I come out saying, is it possible that one day I'll travel through a crossing? I don't know, I was 21. So I said, let's dream. Right, I said, God willing, one day I'll travel. So I chased my dream for exactly two years. I found myself travelling, doing tourism, shooting, for the first time — and I had a dream of being a Travel Photographer, a photographer roaming the world. I love different cultures, I love the feel of other peoples, that whole atmosphere.
So — but I really was living in a conflict: do I carry on with my dream, follow my dream, or carry my responsibility, carry the responsibility that's there because nobody else will. And the responsibility grows in your head, it doesn't shrink; when you carry it, it grows, you get me? Like, I loved the family atmosphere and all of that, so I'd always try to gather my family together. So they started bringing people, bringing other relatives along with us, and they become your responsibility, you have to invite them because you're the eldest — yeah, lots of details I'm telling you, and it's not just me, I'm the one talking—
Ahmad Biqawi 42:27
And this, this, this thing you're saying, maybe someone who doesn't know it wouldn't grasp it, but it gives a person a huge moral, psychological, emotional value — that's actually what you mean; that's why I asked you, actually: it rode you so you rode it, I mean, this gave you a feeling, so you took it to the maximum.
Motaz Azaiza 42:45
Yeah, but it's bad. In the sense that your value becomes tied to what you deliver. Yeah, that's a problem. I mean, even though today, thank God, I've reached a lot of nice places — one day I found myself sitting with the Prince of Holland, he'd left 40 people sitting there and was talking to me, asking me about Gaza, absorbed, he liked my work and was honouring me. But then two days later I find I haven't done anything new, and I feel like, oh, I've lost my value. I have to keep delivering, I have to keep doing, even though you're not required to keep delivering, it's fine. So that, that's a problem.
Ahmad Biqawi 43:20
And you put together the idea of talking about Gaza today, and acting, with that same feeling about the family — I mean, the family responsibility; today you feel the same responsibility toward Gaza.
Motaz Azaiza 43:31
Yeah, yeah, of course, of course, of course. Because, excuse me, I got out of Gaza, thank God, safe and sound, that's it, go live your life. No, no. It became a bigger responsibility.
Even people — one day during the war I was out filming, my family call me, there are people here who want to see you at the house. And I'm like, who's come to see me at the house? Who's come to the house? They say, strangers, I don't know. Suddenly I found lots of people coming to my house wanting me to help them, to post a donation link for them because their houses had been destroyed. They'd come out with, you, you're our only hope. And I'm like, why are you doing this to me? You know? So people had pinned too much hope on me as well.
One day — God rest her, my aunt Ward — my aunt's house was bombed and about 16 people from it were martyred. My cousin was the only survivor, so I was happy, I told him, don't worry, God willing I'll help you rebuild the house and make it up to you, I'll raise donations for you, just for you. Then the war widened and everyone, everyone was displaced. So I found that, no, my cousin doesn't deserve— I found it's not only him who should be compensated. The whole country was flattened. So I dropped the idea, as it were. That was at the beginning, of course. So I stopped focusing on him — no, it's not a personal thing with him, no, it became for everyone. If I'm going to be of use, I have to be of use to everyone. If I'm going to help, I have to help everyone.
And to this day, as much as this thing gives me a good feeling and makes me content with myself, that's how harmful it is psychologically. Very harmful psychologically.
And likewise Gaza — Gaza is the most toxic place in the world. You love it but at the same time you hate it. You love it and it hurts you. You know? However far you go and get out of it — because you've lived there your whole life you think you're the centre of the universe there. You know? And you get out and you cry in the street and it's nothing. What difference does it make to these people? But we have a huge pride in ourselves — it's good, I'm not saying it isn't good, but we also need to mix more with the world, we should have; though of course there's a siege and it's shut, the crossings aren't open, Gaza isn't open. We needed to know how the world sees us so we could see the world properly.
Ahmad Biqawi 45:42
Go back, for God's sake, to before, before the war, and carry on. I mean, up to the war, let's say 2023 — I liked the narration you were building there.
Motaz Azaiza 45:54
So I was an ambitious guy with dreams but I didn't know — I had this feeling that I was going to become something but I didn't know what. Okay? I always had that feeling inside me. And I'd go out and shoot — I don't like war. I don't like shooting war. I want to make beautiful pictures of Gaza. I want to introduce Gaza—
Ahmad Biqawi 46:13
This is from a long time back? A long time back.
Motaz Azaiza 46:15
A long time back.
Ahmad Biqawi 46:15
You don't like war, apart from the photography side. I mean, war in itself, I know it's a hateful thing. But when you say I don't like war, since when? How did that feeling form?
Motaz Azaiza 46:29
As a photographer — all the pictures come out grey, there's no colour in them. But, but the moment there's shelling or the sound of aircraft, I find myself grabbing my camera and running out. The adrenaline goes right up in you.
Ahmad Biqawi 46:42
And apart, apart, apart from the camera discussion — if I go back to the kid who saw maybe his first war, 2008.
Motaz Azaiza 46:48
About then.
Ahmad Biqawi 46:50
I mean, there, if you want to talk about those feelings starting to form with the 2008 war, with the criminality—
Motaz Azaiza 46:54
But before 2008 there was a missile that hit in our street; someone was martyred, I don't remember his name, but we'd still walk past the pole that was snapped in half and say, the missile landed here, and they'd talk about it — so that's how it started. And in our house there was a little hole in the wall, we'd call it a little dent in the wall. Okay. So every time we'd sit on our veranda or out on the grass, my family would tell me, this and that, when you were little there was the shelling, or the occupation's raid, because— I don't know, in America, so they started taking me to a psychiatrist, they'd take me there and I'd sit in the sun. The occupation, the shelling. Then came the gunfire, and this, and you were—
Ahmad Biqawi 47:37
But I want to say to you, you said in the first episode that you were Hamas and that you used to wear the headband, and maybe it actually started with you from there.
Motaz Azaiza 47:44
I mean, it's a mess, a mess. No, I'm telling you very seriously, I don't have a problem with it — I've argued about it with a lot of people and I've had it out with a lot of people here. Like, guys, I was one of them, I understand how they think and I understand what they do, yeah. So in the end, look, the idea from a distance is beautiful. You know? That you'd be someone religiously committed and someone in the resistance — wow, beautiful. But from the inside, no, from the inside it's deformed. From the inside it's very deformed. So back to our subject.
So, sir, I'm ambitious, I want to become something and I feel I'm going to become something but I don't know what I want to become. So I went to university and I'm shooting, making nice pictures, chasing the light in Gaza, wherever there's a sunset, wherever there's a sunset or a sunrise. Trying to make nice pictures, pictures of people, daily life, and at the same time trying to find work so the camera would also be a source of income for me. I finished my tawjihi with a 75, so I didn't know what to study; honestly there's nothing that specialises in art and that sort of thing. So I said, let me study English translation, it's a nice subject, translation is a nice name for it, and at the same time I'd pick up a language. And I did go into translation and I learned English.
I had the lowest grades in the... I mean, my grades at university were bad. My first two years, or first year, my average was 56, academically failing. But still, in the lecture everybody with me is too embarrassed to raise their hand and speak, or to make mistakes; I'd raise my hand, make mistakes and speak — speak wrong, speak right, the point is I just speak, so I learn. Until I found myself in 2021 out in the field as a translator with foreigners coming to the country, even though I had the lowest grades in my year — but nobody in my whole year dared say a word of English. They pass with okay grades, but faced with reality—
Ahmad Biqawi 49:41
So you were a fixer with them, or just a translator? Fixer, fixer. This is 2021. In the earlier wars, had you worked with foreign journalists at all?
Motaz Azaiza 49:50
I worked with ABC Australia but I was a photographer, more than working as a talker. And when was the first time you filmed a war? Which war? 2014, I went to Khuza'a, I was 15. People — nobody was living there, I was in eighth. Me, no. The war ended, I went to Khuza'a, I took the neighbours with us and went just to look and see, I wanted to film — my phone, I just filmed. But I was young, you know. And then there was a Dutch delegation that came, so I came along with them, and they had a 5D Mark III. A 5D Mark III at that time, you know — oh my God! Who gets to hold one of those? So they just handed it to me, oh man, I was over the moon. I just tried to shoot. So—
Ahmad Biqawi 50:41
And Motaz, if I can go back to 2008 again — discovering what war means, or grasping what war means, or what war meant to you at the time.
Motaz Azaiza 50:51
A holiday. The war was a holiday from school. Yeah, but that's the thing, that's the thing — look, back then I was a little kid. When, when, when the war started, where were you in 2008? I'd just come home from the final exams, fifth grade.
Yeah, I'd come home with them, we're all drinking tea at the house, suddenly everything around us is being shelled, shrapnel even landed on the two houses. From al-Shalalat hospital. Yeah, but you watch it on TV, and that day there was a massacre on TV, the day — I think it was the famous one, the Dalou family I think. I think it was children, I think the Dalou family. I think, al-Dalou. It was a famous massacre in that war.
Ahmad Biqawi 51:35
Yeah, yeah, al-Dalou.
Motaz Azaiza 51:37
Yeah, so I'm trying to remember. And fine, and you hear, say, that your relatives' money is gone, they'd put their money into the tunnels. That's a new story. It's full, full of stories, full.
Ahmad Biqawi 51:52
But 2008 — you still hadn't seen the brutality of war, or no scene came close enough to you to speak to its brutality, so you dealt with it as a holiday.
Motaz Azaiza 52:01
Yeah, yeah, yeah, 2014 was — that was a proper hammering. Yeah, yeah. So after that it carried on, I mean I'm talking school and, and there came the period of the tunnels, suddenly I found our neighbours had brought a dog. My cousin going to the crossing, to Rafah crossing, so a car, a dog from China, and he comes back with it. One brings crisps, one brings Sarousho. That was that period.
And 2012, when they assassinated — what's his name? Al-Jaabari. Al-Jaabari, God rest him. So there was a war for a few days. And that day a famous story went around, that this car of his, the Kia, they'd put surveillance in it, that they'd put a bug in it or something. I mean, Israel monitoring everything, and drones and so on. We were sort of naive, you know, we'd hear the stories and believe them, wild stories.
And yeah, after that, 2014 — my ambition was to play ball, to play. I went to the Ittihad Samu Deir al-Balah club. I wanted to play basketball, handball, volleyball. My dad was a handball player, he played for the national team back in the day, and left-handed. So I'd go with him to the handball matches and I'd see this guy taking pictures. Sport's nice, so I wanted to play. So I come to play and they tell me, look, we can't get you boots, your size is too big. Yeah, I mean the size isn't— How big is your foot? Today or back then? Back then I was a 45. That was at about seventeen, sixteen years old. Today it's 50.
Ahmad Biqawi 53:49
You're a thirteen, meaning twenty-nine—
Motaz Azaiza 53:51
Fifteen.
Ahmad Biqawi 53:54
Fifteen.
Motaz Azaiza 53:54
Fifteen.
Ahmad Biqawi 53:55
No, you suffered properly.
Motaz Azaiza 53:57
I suffered, I suffered. So I, so I couldn't. There came a period where I suffered, barefoot. There just wasn't — like, get me boots, there wasn't my size in all of Gaza. Allahu akbar! And then, you're a kid, who's going to know how to order them or bring them in.
Ahmad Biqawi 54:12
No, and you're talking about the period when goods couldn't even get into Gaza at all, right up to 2011, 2012 when things opened up and stuff started coming in. So I imagine your foot growing while it's under siege.
Motaz Azaiza 54:23
Right.
Ahmad Biqawi 54:24
Literally under siege.
Motaz Azaiza 54:27
I used to get really upset when someone made fun of me. Today I take it as something to be proud of. I don't know why. Subhan Allah, and the teasing— What was it? They'd always say to me, like, camel, your legs have turned into what, ship of the desert. I'd get upset. I mean, they're bullying me.
Ahmad Biqawi 54:41
No, I'm asking because I understand the feeling, and only tall people can understand what you went through, because I went through it. But actually all the shoe shops, or the options available in them, they talk you round and tell you, it'll stretch, and that's the feeling, so you lose — you don't even know what comfortable feet means. But in the country those options just don't exist at all. When you travel abroad you find it's normal, it's there. I mean, if you'd been born somewhere else, a story like this you'd never feel at all.
Motaz Azaiza 55:12
I wouldn't even be talking about it. I mean, for instance, the problem is you're walking in Gaza, you say to him, do you have big sizes? He says yeah, come in, come in, go ahead. His biggest size is a 44. Like, where are the big sizes? I tell him 50. He says, no, wallah, we haven't got it. So yeah, I suffered a good amount with that too. I never got into sport.
Ahmad Biqawi 55:30
The siege years — were there other things you felt you lost back then?
Motaz Azaiza 55:38
No, not much, because there weren't many things in our lives anyway. I mean I also remember the gas being cut off, going to the primus. I remember the days of the primus too, on kerosene. I remember the days of the shambar. You know the shambar? No. It's a gas canister with a lamp inside it, a mantle, and you light it and it lights up. Shambar, that's what we call it.
Ahmad Biqawi 56:06
Shambar — that's got to be an Egyptian name.
Motaz Azaiza 56:08
It's more or less Egyptian. Gaza is very influenced by Egypt, you know? Yeah, of course. And in the West Bank they're influenced more by Jordan. So, yeah.
Ahmad Biqawi 56:21
Motaz, if I can go back to the basis of your relationship with Palestine in the first place. Is there something before the first slap you took? I'm Dominican, you know. Yeah, you're Dominican, right, yeah.
Motaz Azaiza 56:33
Before the first slap.
Ahmad Biqawi 56:34
Right, yeah, before the first slap you took in the settlement — can I say there was an event before it that woke you up to the idea of Palestine, or to the idea of confronting the occupation and rejecting the occupation.
Motaz Azaiza 56:48
Like, when I'd go — my dad, I mean there were always weapons in our house. I mean our house was full of weapons. When I'd go — I didn't see, we'd have the TV on the Hebrew channel and the bulldozers were bulldozing our neighbours' land, and the TV, even back then there was Israeli TV I think, in a house on our street too, so we'd watch it at home and it was free. But we were scared to go out and so on. So the settlements, the retribution, the shelling, my grandfather for instance.
Ahmad Biqawi 57:18
But did you have an actual incident, a scene, a story, that made your consciousness towards Palestine and Israel and the occupation different. I mean, in everyone's life there's a circumstance or a story that shifted the idea from an emotional place, or just a cliché, to a place of real confrontation, or of injustice in the relationship.
Motaz Azaiza 57:39
I mean, the first friend I lost, my school friend, his name was Alaa Abu Dahrouj. Right? Alaa played football, he was really good, and he was in my class. He was martyred in the 2014 war, by artillery. Right? So that was the first time I cried over a martyr. The first time I lost someone who meant something to me, from my class.
Ahmad Biqawi 58:02
What grade were you in? How old were you? I was in tenth grade, or ninth.
Motaz Azaiza 58:11
Yeah, 15 years old. Right? And of course, apart from that, when you go out to the street, guys, you grab the cliché and get your picture taken with it, and the picture with the gun and so on. And apart from that, as a kid you see the — what do we call them? The big concrete blocks in the days of the incursions.
Ahmad Biqawi 58:25
The concrete blocks.
Motaz Azaiza 58:27
No, they were barricades. Yeah, we'd put them up, you'd find them in the street, suddenly you'd find they'd set them down. And he'd tell you there are tanks, they might invade, so we put them up. I mean in the Authority's days, its last days, that's what the talk was. So that was the first friend I lost, honestly.
And apart from that, the story of my grandfather, who was martyred in 1969. Of course this is a story I tell — I mean the name, the name of my street was Abu Husni, the street I live on. There's a sign in Hebrew and Arabic and in English that says Abu — in English, Abu Husni Rehov or something like this. So my grandfather in 1969 was hiding wanted men, he worked the land, so he hid them and the army came in on him and he refused to say where they were, so they killed him. He was martyred with 35 bullets. That's his famous story in the street. And the street is named after my grandfather. So you hear this when you're little, you know this story, and that's it, you get an attachment to the street, to the land — my grandfather was martyred, my grandfather is a martyr.
You know? So you go to his grave and you see, like, yeah, 1969, that's what's written on his grave, this is the grave of so-and-so, who was killed by the Jews on such and such a day, that's how it's written. So you just keep gathering up what's around you, you hear and you see and you watch.
And then after this friend of mine was martyred, because it hurt me a lot, in a hard way. After that I joined the Red Crescent, I was a volunteer with them. I was trying to learn and so on, until the Great March of Return came in 2018. In 2017 there were some marches and so on. The first time I smelled tear gas was in 2017. I didn't know what gas meant, why I'd see them in the West Bank wearing masks. What does it mean, what does it do? Suddenly I smelled the gas — neither I nor my family had ever smelled gas before that day. God damn it. To this day I have problems from it. You hear bang bang and a bullet flying past right next to you and you see people with their legs shredded.
Until one day I got hit in the leg, in 2018. Even though I was a paramedic and a photographer. I don't know, I've got no stake in it either way, I'm just shooting. Suddenly I found— Thank God it wasn't live ammunition, it was rubber-coated, it was in my leg, and I felt, you know, the first time I take a slap from Israel; I took a Palestinian slap first, then came the Israeli slap. Yeah, honestly, as much as the Palestinian slap left its mark — but the Palestinian slap is better, I mean this one takes your leg off, takes— So it hit me, and that's it, like, that's it, you won't go back after that — but a week later I go back and shoot again and take risks again.
And my personality started to get built on the idea that life without risk has no meaning. Right? So it became — I don't like war, war, but it gets to where you're waiting for the moment when something happens so you can grab your camera and run and take risks and do something. The adrenaline goes up, your life becomes tied to something.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:01:36
Why? Just as work?
Motaz Azaiza 1:01:38
It's not a work thing, but you feel you're achieving, doing something, you know? Not — you end up with a feeling attached to you as a photojournalist in war, it gets to where if there's no war, you know, there's nothing to shoot, nothing important, and also the attention that comes to you from outside — the world starts caring about you when there's a war, so you've involuntarily linked your value, or your work selling, to there being a war. I don't get why it's like that, but suddenly I found that the world actually is like that, in Gaza, so it became—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:02:15
When did you feel that?
Motaz Azaiza 1:02:17
When I started, I'd grown up, I'm 19, 20 years old, when I started.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:02:21
And from here you actually started dealing with the idea of photojournalism with a different logic, that you're hanging your value as a human being living in Gaza on it.
Motaz Azaiza 1:02:30
I mean, yeah, and you build a name and make a value for yourself and do something and your name spreads globally. So of course every photographer wants his work to spread.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:02:40
Yeah, that's on the career level. But I mean somewhere else — what struck me is how the world, that you realised how the world sees you, that it sees you only when there's a war, sees you only when you make pictures.
Motaz Azaiza 1:02:50
And I liked it at first. I mean, I liked it. Anyone else would—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:02:55
Because it's profitable work-wise, or because there's attention? Profitable, there's attention, more opportunities come to you.
Motaz Azaiza 1:03:04
So okay, fine, why not.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:03:07
Okay, so, actually, in the same context — what did your eye see? You know photographers, there are photographers and then there are photographers, they differ, they know which picture sells.
Motaz Azaiza 1:03:18
Yeah.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:03:19
So what did your eye actually see, pictures in the wars? I never sold a picture.
Motaz Azaiza 1:03:23
I don't know how they do it. I'd suddenly see — I'd hear them around me, like, upload the pictures to the wire, there, his picture went out, they took his pictures, they didn't take mine. I'd look and see this guy got into my work, and I don't even know what 'got into your work' means, I'm shocked. So I don't get it. And I never worked with a news agency where I'm attached to them and that's it. I don't like being tied down, I don't like being attached to anyone. So I liked working on my own. I'd work on my own, someone asks me for a job, I do his job, that's all.
So I'd be surrounded by journalists, and I'd never in my life imagined someone might shove me while I'm shooting so I don't get the shot and he gets it before me; I don't understand who fights over a picture. Until it got to — until I understood that Gaza's environment, as hard as it is and with so few opportunities, everyone's eye is on the other guy's work, you know? Everyone's watching the other guy.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:04:12
Which is — however big the events are, they're limited, and there are lots of photographers and the competition is fierce.
Motaz Azaiza 1:04:18
So everyone feels like someone's taking his livelihood, so everyone fights, everyone's tough in how he deals with the other guy, except the one whose job is secure, of course. So it became few opportunities, limited opportunities, a besieged place, more and more people, and you end up fighting for what you love, fighting for your livelihood.
And at the same time people didn't like the camera in Gaza. Which people? People in general, especially in the war. First, it got tied to a security thing with the coming of Hamas and so on, so anyone with a camera, say, might be a spy, come here. Peace be upon you. So anyone with a camera became suspicious, a suspect. Because you're filming — excuse me, you, where did you send this picture? You know? That's how it goes. And there got to be a lot of — like, there were Hamas positions in places and places, so it got to where even if you're walking around with a camera without turning it on, someone might come up to you: come here, what are you filming? Why do you have a camera? At the same time, when you go to shoot — plus we're a conservative environment, Gaza's environment I mean.
Right? So for instance you go somewhere, I'd go out with another woman photojournalist, and I'd find she went into people's house and photographed their story and I'm not allowed in, even though it's a picture I'd end up seeing anyway, but no, she's a girl. So the girl ended up with an advantage in society, some things are allowed for her, and at the same time society comes down on her over lots of things. I mean, fine, everyone has their rights, nobody should encroach on anybody else.
Same in Gaza, transport: if for instance you were sitting in front and two guys in the back and it comes to it, you have to get out of the front and put the girl in front and you go back. Or if there are two girls in the back and a guy in front, and you come to get in, then the girl has to put her bag between you and her — one time there was a woman who had pins in hers and it tore my leg up. It's normal, and it's her right, that's it, yeah, and you're not allowed to talk to her. So it got to where new traits appeared that we weren't aware of, that didn't used to happen.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:06:25
But they've always been there, Motaz.
Motaz Azaiza 1:06:27
I don't know, I didn't know.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:06:29
There's something in what you're saying, you keep saying it — you know, honestly the difference, there's something I just keep seeing with you, that your whole consciousness formed under Hamas, I mean under Hamas rule, under a Hamas government, so actually even the conservative social customs that exist, the ones you're talking about — move away, don't come close, and so on. I mean, Hamas never once ruled us in the West Bank.
But from when we were little, actually — I was tall, so in other people's eyes I grew up early, so I started being exposed to these things directly, that you're in the taxi, how you're supposed to sit and how people push past each other, the idea of the houses, the doors that shut in your face, so, I mean socially, what you're saying exists in the whole society. But for instance the discussion you raised at the start about the security level, that someone's carrying his camera and moving around with it — that's typical of somewhere with a government or a security body controlling people, and filming is forbidden and documenting is forbidden and so on.
Motaz Azaiza 1:07:29
Let me tell you a really sad story about a photographer I know personally.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:07:33
But let me tell you one more thing, a social thing. Bring out any social thing that applies to the whole Palestinian people and I'll take it on myself.
Motaz Azaiza 1:07:40
Fine, sir, okay.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:07:41
Let me tell it to you like this. We've taken on the taxis, the taxi fights, we have.
Motaz Azaiza 1:07:45
Okay. Let me tell you a story and you compare. I mean, just so you understand my point of view — sometimes I don't know how to put things in the right context, that's all.
But for instance I was coming back from Egypt in 2022 with four cartons of cigarettes and 2 kilos of shisha tobacco. Okay, like any citizen from Gaza coming back with stuff. So I'm at the crossing before I get to the inspection at, you know, Hamas police, and this young woman comes across me, she knows a relative of mine so she recognised me, and she's got her son with her, and she says to me, looks like you're carrying extra tobacco, they'll take it off you, they'll make you pay duty on it. I said to her, no, no, come on, I know what— She said, yeah, hand it over, put it with me, and I'll tell someone from your family where to come get it from me. So I'm like, why — but okay, fine.
I thought, you're the same as me, what's the difference? Anyway, she got to my family's house and dropped the stuff off for me, thanks to her — she went through the inspection, nobody touched her, because she's a girl: open it, go on, off you go. Me, four hours arguing with the customs guy so he'd knock 100 shekels off or whatever for the cartons I had, and she went through with four and nobody touched her. So I'm telling you.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:08:52
Boss, that's not Hamas, that's even the drug traffickers in Latin America too, same idea — that's exactly why in National Geographic investigations it's the young women who carry the money on their bodies and carry the drugs and so on. Because there's a more innocent view of young women. You haven't got all that stubble on your face like me, so of course they're going to stop you.
Motaz Azaiza 1:09:13
Sir, sorry.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:09:14
There are lots of things. There are things right now while we're sitting here listening, I mean talking with each other. They're not many, but there's something.
I was sitting thinking, by the way, about the fight between Shabjdeed and Sanleivan and so on, that some people see the thing as conservative and non-conservative and so on. But for instance in 2023 I went down. I was in the country, at the Friday sermon — the security services, over years since 2006, had cleaned out, I mean removed, all the preachers or mosque imams who give sermons who were from Hamas, so they all actually became Fatah. I mean when you go and listen to a Fatah preacher, the typical Fatah one, that's it, he's been security-vetted and everything — boss, you hear a sermon harder than what you're talking about, you end up going, Allahu akbar, I mean there actually is something to do with our societies, they keep outbidding each other, I mean anyone who gets up on a pulpit or takes power starts outbidding the other guy socially, as if it's the easiest thing, same as all the social practices.
Yeah, all the social practices — in every country you find the government always pulling towards more conservatism, because it's easy and they always gain more from it.
Motaz Azaiza 1:10:23
There was a period that came in Gaza where people hated the mosques, people mostly only went for Friday prayer, mosques stopped being something we looked at as a mosque. And honestly, there got to be something that put people off going to the mosque. Because it stopped being a mosque, it stopped being a mosque. You want to go to the Friday sermon and suddenly he lays into the Authority, calls who knows who a kafir, curses who knows who — and this is the mosque preacher, like that. So it's the same thing, the same thing. And where's the problem? That anyone who opposed them in Gaza is a kafir, a traitor, an apostate. You know? These things. So maybe it's the same thing in the West Bank, I don't know and I don't judge or—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:11:07
I'm thinking — no, I— I want to tell you, if there's another guy from the West Bank the same age as you who grew up— I saw Hamas sheikhs and I saw Fatah sheikhs, among the mosque preachers, the Friday preachers, and I also saw Hizb ut-Tahrir, so I understand better than anyone how each one might give a Friday sermon.
But actually most of the guys your age in the West Bank only see mosque imams from Fatah, so for him this mosque imam is a Fatah guy. And imagine, for his consciousness — imagine the same discourse you're talking about, but Fatah, a Fatah sheikh actually talking about conservatism, and that yesterday there was so-and-so doing who knows what, one two three, or that people have stopped caring about each other or stopped worrying about each other, you even feel something harder than you might think, because sometimes the one who doesn't have that religious immunity ends up overdoing it socially. Socially, I think there's something in the country tied to the whole idea of conservatism.
But I want to ask you: 2021 to 2023, right, your daily life in Palestine, I mean your daily life in Gaza, what was it like?
Motaz Azaiza 1:12:18
Those days — I mean 2021, there was the 11-day war, so I'd get there and cover it. And then I went to Egypt for two months, I was looking for work, I didn't find any. So I came back. I had a photo exhibition in Italy, I couldn't get a visa. The fingerprint machine broke down in Gaza. God damn it, I just left it at that.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:12:43
You had travelled before 2023.
Motaz Azaiza 1:12:45
Yeah, yeah, '22. I was trying to find, find a way to travel. But then I got a job with UNRWA in Gaza. And I worked with them as a content producer, content maker and photographer. So—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:13:00
Okay, you had a good career going in that period, why did you want to leave?
Motaz Azaiza 1:13:04
I mean, the place is limited, you know? That's it — why should I stay living my whole life without electricity, 8 hours a day? Or why should I stay, like, I'm sorry, but however good your work is, say. Why is it hard? Why is it expensive? And then work, even part-time, it's not — it's not a full-time job where you have your rights and all that, and at any moment it falls apart, at any moment your work stops, it's hostage to the circumstances. So that's it, I want to see, make my own way, I want to build a future. So—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:13:43
Sorry, I want to ask you again, just so you think it over. There's a belief that people like you, the ones who were distinguished — some of them, friends or people we know in Gaza, wouldn't travel, because if he's a distinguished photographer inside Gaza, the moment he leaves it he turns into just a photographer in this big world.
Motaz Azaiza 1:14:01
Yeah.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:14:02
And on the contrary, his opinions and the things he had room for and that were valued inside the country can turn into an indictment of him. I mean, just as there were things you were valued for and that were worth money career-wise while you were inside the country, today you might pay the price for them somewhere else — it cuts down your opportunities or means you can't work with some company or some body. So why could you actually think that outside, in this very wide world, you might have a better opportunity?
Motaz Azaiza 1:14:31
At the time I didn't know what was coming, I didn't know if — but I could see that outside there's a wider space, so I'd definitely find an opportunity, I mean, I'll look and I'll find, but in Gaza opportunities are limited. You get promised something and suddenly it falls apart, there's an escalation, there's a war. And you want to grow in your life, you want to achieve, you want to do something. So, I was also patient, I didn't try.
A week before 7 October I was planning to travel again, and then my job, I couldn't leave it, I said no, let me keep working here, and I was making decent money, a good salary for someone in Gaza, it'd get you, like, 20 dollars Decent, I mean, for a guy my age. What was your daily life like? I'd go out and shoot, or go down to the beach.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:15:18
Where were you shooting? I'd go to the beach.
Motaz Azaiza 1:15:22
Either the Deir al-Balah beach, that was nicer — the nicest beach for me in Gaza. Or in Gaza City I'd sit in a cafe, a particular cafe called Mazaj.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:15:31
Which one of them? The one at the—
Motaz Azaiza 1:15:33
By the Capital Mall. God rest it, I mean. And sometimes I'd sit at al-Baqa, say, on the beach. I'd sit at Hani B, it was a small cafe, like that. You see the shore, you see stuff. I mean, I had a friend I'd go out shooting with most of the time, Mohammed al-Rifi, God rest him, he was martyred in this war. And like, normal shore pictures, but I'd just be shooting, you know.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:16:06
Motaz, when the destruction happened, people started going back to pre-war photos. And this, this is a natural result, that people go back and look at what they lost, what they had taken from them in the war. But if I want to go back like this — let me try with you to unpack this feeling, the idea of being forced to go back to remind yourself. I sense there was a scale of shock, I mean, with the 7 October operation and the genocide — right, people were under siege, but for two or three years they'd started to see some hope, started to see life, I mean, in Gaza.
Motaz Azaiza 1:16:43
Because, look, the last two years—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:16:45
It started building projects, started building cafes, started— That's why I'm asking you what your daily life was, what the whatever was. So is this feeling real?
Motaz Azaiza 1:16:53
I mean, yeah, and besides that, the last two years it wasn't like, honestly, a siege, there was nothing, it eased off. It got so that a worker would go out every day, go out and work in Israel. Fifty thousand workers, all of them going out to work. The country's situation improved, a lot of new projects opened. Travel got easier. Instead of paying a coordination fee of 1,500 or 2,000 dollars, you'd pay 200 dollars and find yourself in Cairo. Things got easier little by little, it moved. The city got a bit cleaner. So nobody expected, I mean, that, that you'd feel there was a war coming.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:17:28
But at the same time there was also the opposite picture, which is the images of young people emigrating, I mean the numbers, the quantities. You know, it was even the country's trend at the time — a boat sank here, young guys drowned there.
Motaz Azaiza 1:17:41
Turkey and so on, they closed the visa, they opened the visa in Turkey.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:17:43
There were young guys who went out swimming, I mean there are a lot of contradictions.
Motaz Azaiza 1:17:45
This period, from around 2017 on. Yeah but—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:17:49
No no no, I'm talking, I'm talking about up to before 2023, I mean. You know, those farewell scenes at the, at the, at the Rafah crossing, or even, that's it, these groups, dozens of young guys going out overland.
Motaz Azaiza 1:18:02
Me, for instance, why did I want to travel? Why? Why me, for instance? As a young guy in Gaza you don't feel you have a government, you have someone behind you, you don't have anyone. So the one who got out was working in Israel as a labourer, he's a labourer, and at the same time you have to be married and you have to be this and that. So there was this funny thing we'd say in Gaza — you want to register to go out and work, to be a worker, you have to be married. Well, I don't have money to get married, so I can't go. And at the same time, as a young guy there's nothing that holds you, so in the country there's nothing, nothing governmental and nothing non-governmental. And that's it, and most people who have jobs are sitting in their jobs and working.
And the numbers keep growing, and in the last stretch, I mean, suicide became more common. Never mind people drowning and travelling, okay. I mean, there were also, there were people killing themselves. Suddenly you'd find someone who'd set himself on fire with petrol. And suddenly the one who blew himself up with something. So no, a lot of people killed themselves, because you've got depression, you've got things piling up, you've got nobody checking on you. Suddenly the guy is 35 years old and he hasn't built anything, hasn't worked, doesn't have a car, doesn't have anything, hasn't done a thing in his life. So young people themselves are one of the most wronged groups in Gaza.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:19:19
And if I want to say there are three groups, as you said, before 2023 — there are the young guys who wanted to get out even by sea, to build any life outside, and there are people who actually knew how to manage inside, with great, lovely daily lives.
I'm asking you, you know, because before the war I'd get suggestions to do episodes on why so many flashy cafes are opening in Gaza. I mean that was the discussion before. So that's the second group, and the third group is the one crushed by the pressure piling up. Where did you see yourself among these three, or all of them together? I'm in the middle, right, I was. What do you mean in the middle, you were never in the middle. Come on, there is no middle. That's a fourth one.
Motaz Azaiza 1:20:02
I was somewhere between, like, that's it, you feel Gaza has got too small for you. You know what I mean? Like, it can't take your growth. That feeling comes over you. Another thing, that's it, you start focusing more on the problems you're living in, or that your country is living in. The electricity, the water, the way people treat each other, the manners, the cleanliness, the lack of opportunities. So you try — we'd hear, where's Motaz? Honestly, he's hustling, hustling, looking for work, I mean managing, chasing. You know? So you go and hustle, you try to find yourself something, and mostly — and we have a lot of empty time, a lot of empty time.
Right, so you — me for instance, I was lucky that I had the camera, I'd put all that empty time into the camera, go out and shoot, document, whatever. So I was lucky. Before the war, what were you shooting? Normal stuff, people's daily life. Portrait. I worked as a portrait photographer, people's faces. I was really good at it and that was my artistic field. I feel like an artist in it. But it doesn't put food on the table. There's nothing left in it, for sure. I mean, who.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:21:11
There were trends, remind me if I'm right — there were always trends, like photos of kids or little girls swimming in the sea and doing their hair at sunset. So that's a repeated image, and the horse pictures are repeated, so it was like there came to be a kind of picture in Gaza that gets repeated, right?
Motaz Azaiza 1:21:29
Yeah, after him Ibrahim Farajallah, may God make it easy for him. He's in Turkey at the moment, and there were other photographers too, and Ali Ashour was — yeah, those, the pictures were repeated and that was it, everyone copying everyone, because it's the same picture. So I was always trying not to take the same picture, to have new work, something new, people who don't know it, people who haven't seen it, so I'd head out and go round all of Gaza.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:21:51
Okay Motaz, by the same logic, even when you were seeing the thing, where you see yourself among the three. We weren't seeing enough pictures about, about, about the siege of Gaza. I mean we weren't seeing enough stories or reports or anything that expresses an idea other than that Gaza is resistance.
There's official media that Hamas has, and there are loads of young guys like you carrying their cameras and they have their spaces and their room, but it didn't get through, or — I even went back to the archive, the 2022 to 2023 period, how many stories actually talked about, about the suffering, or about the people who are there. Economic stories, for instance, social stories. Is there something where you lot actually, I mean, people run away from these stories, even the photographers and even the people working in journalism and media.
Motaz Azaiza 1:22:44
Look, it's — look, okay. See, there are things — I mean Hamas has its official media and we dealt with Hamas's media, we worked with them, of course, in the end they're the de facto government. But where's the problem? If you showed up in a story and worked and your name came out and it got known that you did something, whether for your own interest or something that doesn't sit well with them. Then you get disappeared into a cell.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:23:11
But what's that got to do with it? Right now I'm talking about, say, young guys who want to go pro in football but there aren't enough pitches — sorry, pitches — or there are students or there are people waiting to do something, or there's a young inventor who wants to do something. I mean usually these reports only came out like proof of life in front of a test of whether the Gazan deserves to live or not, during the siege. So it comes out as: despite the siege, look, we made a car, despite the siege. Look, we ran a car on cooking oil.
But I mean day to day, even the young guys like you were seeing the bad, negative reality and had the means and the skills. I'm just trying to ask like this, to challenge you a bit, or let's think together — why didn't you see this, or why didn't you publish it enough.
Motaz Azaiza 1:24:00
Well, first of all nobody was asking for it, so even if you did it nobody would be looking to pay you for it, or for it to be seen — it wouldn't spread. Right. Second, there were things in us like, honestly, go with what's moving, work on what's moving, because that's what's selling. So a story comes out and you find everyone keen to shoot it, because there'll be demand for it, which is the trend I mean, okay, and that's natural, it's no different from any society.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:24:26
And before 2023, what were Gaza's trends that sold and got likes?
Motaz Azaiza 1:24:32
Like, for instance, a father at his daughter's graduation. You know? Normal, a normal thing that exists in any society, someone back from travelling and they play him "Ya meet ahla" — a hundred welcomes, my soul's back in my chest. That thing, you find everyone doing the same song, the same words, the same everything. Or a new cafe that opened on the beach, for instance. Or, say, at Christmas you find the photographers getting a Santa Claus, putting him in the rubble and shooting him. So every Christmas you find them doing the same work.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:25:04
Putting him where?
Motaz Azaiza 1:25:05
In rubble, in whatever, in a camp — I mean what's Santa Claus got to do with Shati camp, for instance? You know? Just to grab attention. You know? Same story. When there's an escalation here or there for a few days, work, you run after — there's a funeral, someone was martyred, whatever.
So for instance corona came, also a new story, I started going out with the police, me and whoever, and filming people and running after them, I mean they were treating, treating the thing like a crime. I mean, you know? Like, whoever went out might get beaten, it was a thing, a story. Yeah, and there was a period where we washed the whole city with chlorine, I don't know why.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:25:50
No no, that's the corona archive. I think it's not in anyone's interest in the world to open up what happened with it. There's a video where you say you washed the sea — washed the sea, washed the street with chlorine.
There's a video I'll never forget, in Bethlehem, there was the first, the first hotel where they'd quarantined people with corona, and a group of guys went out, I mean the town's men, and played revolution songs and went to salute the quarantined guys over the mics: stand firm, hold the line, we're with you, and so on. Today you just look at the scene in retrospect, I mean it's a hard thing, I tell you, even Fatah was framing the virus at that stage, I mean the factions worked it.
Motaz Azaiza 1:26:39
No, there was a demonstration in Jabalia against corona. I swear to God there was a demonstration. I swear to God there was. Yeah, right, there was a demonstration in Jabalia against corona. Yeah, and there was also the "We want to live" movement in 2019 and so on. Were you part of it? On Facebook only. But my uncle would call me, like, delete it, so they don't come for you. I'd go and delete it. No, I mean, but the camp, ours in Deir al-Balah, it was—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:27:04
But all these movements that demanded, say, improving living conditions or job opportunities or anything else. Were you part of any of them before 2023? No no no. You never had a single public scene opposing Hamas?
Motaz Azaiza 1:27:21
I mean, I couldn't stand them, but I don't have any, I mean, I think about what could be done. But the problem is I don't trust, and there's no, I mean there's no, there's no quota, say, that you work in. There are no groups, like, honestly, let's work together to do a particular thing. And I'm young myself, I mean, I don't have — also I wasn't a guy of, honestly, 30 years old at that time. You know? So I'm definitely less experienced and I've suffered less — I'm telling you, I've suffered less than any guy who, say, got beaten by Hamas. You know? So I'm not claiming, honestly, that I — no, I'm just telling you what I saw.
I remember one day someone, someone from Internal Security assaulted me once because I had a camera and was filming, and I was wearing shorts, so I went to the police station to complain about the guy who hit me — why did he hit me? He'd taken my camera. So I went and stood in front of the policeman, and he asks me, where are you from? I tell him such and such. He says to me, what does your father do? I said, honestly, in the Authority, but he's been sitting at home since the coup. And he just stared at me like that. So I don't know, honestly, seriously, I mean I'm innocent. He tells me his name is al-Hasan. Sir, yes, al-Hasan, al-Hasan.
He says to me, okay, why are you wearing shorts? I say, I don't know, it's summer. He said to me, so you don't pray? I told him, man, I swear I pray, but what's that got to do with it, wearing shorts is normal. So they took me inside and gave me coffee and maamoul and told me, don't wear the shorts outside again, and they brought me my camera. I went home. I mean, I mean. Yeah.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:28:57
Motaz. 2023, the event happened. I mean, you were telling me earlier that you didn't see that kind of profiling, and that was a personal assessment, to be fair to you and to your generation. So that's why I keep circling around it — you knew Hamas as an authority, full stop.
And like anyone actually in any country who sees any government and holds it responsible, and it does actually bear all the responsibility for the people there, so it's right in front of you, and part of it is this social debate that happened, the one that happens in every conservative environment. But through your generation's eyes, you actually saw it that way. But also at the same time you have your responsibilities, you have your path, you have a career, and there's nothing where you're part of a direct clash with them, let me say, or that you were roughed up or arrested or pulled back or—
Motaz Azaiza 1:29:46
No no. Threatened, yeah, but not, no, not with anyone, and honestly I don't let myself get to something like that, that's it, because in the end, I mean, there's a saying, I tell you, if you want to fight with. I said they'll take the word and go, Motaz says such and such.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:30:00
Say it, why not say it.
Motaz Azaiza 1:30:02
Yeah, but I'd just be messing myself up more, I mean. You know what I mean? And in the end, I'm sorry, but even now Israel can't do anything. You know? So me, for instance — when you're in opposition, what are you going to do? It's not a democratic environment where you speak your mind, no, suddenly you might find yourself beaten, or shot in the leg, or your honour dragged through it, or something. So no, not me. Why would I get myself to that point? That's it, I keep quiet. Yeah, but.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:30:25
You actually understand the constraints, I mean the local ones that exist, the ones you could hit at a social level, with kids, with a government, with whoever, so you keep going along like everyone else. And that's the opposite of your personality after 2023, I mean.
Motaz Azaiza 1:30:39
But no, because the country collapsed, there was no country left.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:30:41
That's what I'm getting to. That's what I'm getting to. But Motaz didn't collapse.
Motaz Azaiza 1:30:45
He won't collapse, God willing. He has to stay smart. But before you go on, I mean, say, you're saying. But me, for instance, I have friends in Hamas. Right? Hello, Abu Humaid, listen, what's his name, the drone's flying over the area. Call me, Badr, Badr. You know? Listen, I want to go and film such and such. I've got a problem. Hello, listen, this and that happened. And this one sends his regards, you go and sit down with them, say. But it wasn't, it wasn't my environment, the one I like to mix in. You know? Not my conversations, not my conversations, I mean, but with— you know people and you see them, they greet you, you greet them, you have a cup of coffee—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:31:14
But that's it, you're in a positive atmosphere, I mean socially you don't have problems, your work goes smoothly and you're fine in society.
Motaz Azaiza 1:31:22
Right.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:31:23
2023, 7 October, where were you? On 7 October I was asleep, right? You woke up, picked up the camera and ran? Or this time were you scared?
Motaz Azaiza 1:31:32
I woke up, no, no fear, we still don't understand, you know? Don't understand, suddenly I found — they tell me: "Motaz, get up, quick, the war's started." So I got up and went up on the roof like every time there's shelling, I mean, where are the rockets coming out from? Right next door. So, could something have happened, has their rocket system broken? Or could spies have done this, or could a special force have got in, or what's going on? Suddenly you're standing in the house and you hear Deif's speech when he came out and spoke, you get me? So that's it — so when he spoke like that, I saw what I saw on the videos, so honestly I won't hide it — it was goosebumps, I was shivering at what was happening, something very big.
But at the same time the first thing, like the feeling of anyone in Gaza — and I'm sure 99% of Gaza's people thought and felt the same way — God protect us from what's coming. I mean, for everyone what had happened mattered less than the reaction mattered, because we know Israel. Excuse me, I mean, in Shalit's day they burned Gaza down, over Shalit. Let alone over what happened. So what did we become? Like, God protect us, God protect us — we were just cracking jokes, the country's gone, that's it.
So anyone who tells you we didn't expect the reaction — tell him, you're a liar. All of Gaza expected the reaction. No, and Hamas itself knows the Israeli reaction. So — we even got to the point of saying "the Sabbath came in on the Jews" [October 7 fell on a Saturday; the Levantine idiom "the Sabbath came in on him" means he was caught frozen, unable to act], you know what I mean? That's the kind of thing we were saying, so—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:33:13
Antisemitism, yeah.
Motaz Azaiza 1:33:15
Yeah, exactly, we were just cracking jokes. Translate that one for me — don't slip it past me right in front of my eyes, translate it for me.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:33:19
No, we do translate it, you're talking to us and we're sitting here translating right now.
Motaz Azaiza 1:33:23
I swear, you'll get me labelled. You, watch out with this thing, I think I told you the story before, in a call. But what happened to me, I got out, so it happened — I got — a company came to me, Sony, they wanted to work with me, they were going to work with me, then they stopped, they said: "No, you, Israeli this and Israeli that, you'll cause us problems, and they'll accuse us of things, and we're a neutral party." I said: "Fine."
A kids' cartoon channel came to me, they wanted to make an animation about me, a Gaza superhero and all that, they dropped it. Why? Because people are attacking you, resistance this and resistance that and Hamas. I said: "Right, I lose from this side and I lose from that side." So thank God, but honestly, with the bad of the last two years, how much psychological pressure, how many things, and the pressure changed me in a really hard way.
But today I get to the point that with all the losses, all the pain, all the mistakes, I'm proud that I stayed steady. Proud that neither money changed me nor, nor fame, because honestly my fame was very big, it could have had me playing with millions, more than millions. But it's people's blood, and I know I'd never enjoy anything I take off the back of people's blood, so I try to stay loyal to it to the last tie, until I find myself unable to, and I'll come out and say: "God, man, I can't do it." After that there's nothing more from me.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:34:50
What, you want to close the conversation? I'm the one who closes it, not you sitting there doing summaries now.
Motaz Azaiza 1:34:57
Sorry, sorry.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:34:59
Okay, dear, so, so, it came, the thing came, you took the shock, your body hair stood up, and like a lot of people, I mean we all got hit, right? So, so, for me, my personal experience — hey, hats off to you, or — I knew you from, from, I mean from, from the professionalism of the image, from you having a drone at the first stage, that's how I saw the profile, and then I started seeing more, I mean, I was following Arabic accounts more, I started seeing people filming Motaz, so here I understood that this Motaz, besides being a professional photographer for the foreigners, it's clear he's loved at a very local level, because loads of journalists and people who are there in the country are filming Motaz and saying: "Check on Motaz, there's Motaz, our beloved Motaz," like that. So that's how I saw—
Motaz Azaiza 1:35:44
It is like that. No, no, no, it's not like that, it's that suddenly I found people stopping and filming with me, they're seeing me, what's with you. Let me give it to you, give it to you from the beginning, in order, so you get what you want, okay?
Ahmad Biqawi 1:35:57
Yeah, now, because 7 October, we want to get to it now — did you pick up the camera on 8 October or on 7 October, to get the story out?
Motaz Azaiza 1:36:02
7 October, 6:30 in the morning I was in the street, I took my neighbour's son who has a small car, "Come on, man, come, I'll give you 50 shekels, just come out with me." Yeah, he came out with me, suddenly Salah al-Din, there's a Golf, first time we'd seen one in Gaza. There's an Israeli taxi. There's, then there's Louay's car, Qassam, a jeep, with Israeli captives in it. Stopping in every area, people get out to watch, one hits, one bangs on it, whatever, and they move on, and I'm behind them filming.
So I'm filming, but it never occurred to me to raise my hand or hit or spit or curse or do anything. And if you want the truth, maybe the reason for that is the awareness Gaza gave me over the past period, that the occupation — it focuses on everything, and they like to take revenge. So any movement — and I didn't know we'd become famous, I didn't know I'd get this far — so I stuck to the journalist's role, that's it, I've got nothing to do with what, with what's happening in front of me.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:37:12
Hold on a second, just so I understand here. At that moment did you have the awareness and the realisation that there'd be a huge punishment for everyone? Which later, what we know, everyone who went in, went into the line or was part of the scene, or was, was assassinated and targeted, even people, you know, known just for having gone in at some point or having contributed. So did you have that at that moment, or are you looking at it now in retrospect?
Motaz Azaiza 1:37:39
What I found in retrospect is me appearing on camera, like, hurting an Israeli. Okay. That's one thing.
The second thing is that I was heading to, to Erez. I'd taken this neighbour's kid to go to Erez. But what saved me is that I saw the Qassam cars in front of me so I chased after them to film. So I forgot Erez. Okay. At the same time I finished filming. I got a call that our friends had been hit by an F-16 and journalists were martyred and there were wounded people there. So I cancelled going. Okay.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:38:17
Those scenes, you didn't publish them.
Motaz Azaiza 1:38:20
I didn't publish them. No, I didn't publish them.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:38:22
Why?
Motaz Azaiza 1:38:25
I'm not prepared to lose my family and my people over a shot, so people give me likes and stuff. That's it, there are things that— You get scared. I mean, I'm careful about things, I don't want to turn myself into a fedayeen.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:38:39
And you think at that moment, even someone like you who knows his role and is careful and keeps his distance — you saw that Israel's crime could target you just for publishing the video you're doing as journalistic work.
Motaz Azaiza 1:38:54
I mean, the way I see it, sir, I published it and I'm fine. But anyone who shows up in the video, something could happen to them, I mean they could be brought in through the video I published. So I, I've hurt someone. I mean, killed. I mean I contributed indirectly.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:39:06
And this general security awareness that exists in Gaza's case itself, the one you were telling me about, that you're not allowed to film and you have to know where you're filming and you have to whatever. I mean that you could be filmed at any moment as a target for the occupation without knowing it. So that's the caution you had.
Motaz Azaiza 1:39:20
Israel has all the targets and knows everything. Okay. But the issue is the people, because they're people walking in the street. So they get carried away. And even though I know, I mean, we love the buzz, you know? So there's a rush and there's whatever and there's. So people got excited, and a moment of enthusiasm can cost you. You know? So I was filming, I can film this and that. I can grab whatever, slap the one who hit me, film, whatever. So I went and filmed. But that's it, not gonna post this, because I'd be hurting other people.
And at the same time, the same car that had the soldiers in it and had, I mean, Hamas guys, went into a convoy in the Middle Area. I passed by here. The same planes hit the convoy, with the captives and the Hamas guys. Most of them. So it was their last moment, I mean, and I'd filmed it, and that's it, captured. Because I understand that the video will be taken, anyone walking in the street, they'll get his face. And because Israel has all the IDs, all the faces, I mean all our faces are on the ID, I mean on the identity card. It's easy, so, I mean, really easy, so easy.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:40:23
And that's actually what happened later, I mean the level of the targeting. You know, there's something — at first, in the beginning, people talked about randomness, like as if, I mean, our narrative was that Israel targets without, like, randomly, it kills people. But then you come and see that it's not random so much as the strikes, or the level of sensitivity, or the level of the security indicators that make a human being a target — I mean it was, it was an insane level. That's what happened.
Motaz Azaiza 1:40:57
To clarify. To clarify, Israel does kill randomly in the case of an incursion. When it would invade any area in Gaza, everything in front of it is a target it's allowed to kill, as far as it's concerned. Right? So Israel's randomness shows more in the incursion. When it invades an area, that's it, it's in — anyone, civilian, non-civilian, all of it wounds, animal, inanimate object. So they, I mean, let out their anger more in the incursion.
The military strikes, that's it. It'd be, yeah, he's striking, he wants something, he wants to do something and leave, so for example he carries out the strike and kills another hundred, for the sake of one guy, say. You know? So it's normal for him, it makes no difference to him about the other civilians' lives.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:41:36
So actually on a professional level, I mean, you had a chance to make a trend, or to—
Motaz Azaiza 1:41:43
Not one single time.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:41:44
—ride the big wave on day one, on October seventh, but you weren't—
Motaz Azaiza 1:41:48
Not one single time. Honestly, I never, I'm not— I never filmed something to go looking for a trend. To be honest, I mean. Looking for, like—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:41:54
But it becomes a trend. You became a trend more than once. I mean.
Motaz Azaiza 1:41:58
I don't know.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:42:00
You know, people like you actually stop saying, we want to make a trend. It actually becomes — you're walking in the street and you understand that your eye sees the trend on its own. His eye sees the picture the audience wants, and the picture becomes a trend. So I get that you never once said, "O God the Provider, give us a trend today," and went down into the street.
Motaz Azaiza 1:42:16
No, no, no, no, no. I film. Sorry. I'm not, I mean not, I mean I'm not someone on social media collecting followers. I'm a professional photojournalist, I mean my photos are international. So I'm not looking for the trend here. I care about the picture in the camera more than, I mean—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:42:32
Until, until 7 October you thought like that, that you're actually keeping up your work as a professional.
Motaz Azaiza 1:42:39
Until now.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:42:40
Not that you're working a narrative. No. But there's a stage in Gaza where you actually started working more, I mean, as an activist, as someone pushing a narrative, making trends, controlling a trend or being part of people making a trend. I mean there was something different. But at the start of the war — the period I don't know you in — you're saying the war started and you're a professional photographer.
Motaz Azaiza 1:43:02
I mean. Yeah, that's how I, I mean actually, and I even didn't like using the phone much, because it ruins my work with the camera. The camera is more important to me, you know? To capture history. So— but the phone became very important, and at the same time there are things, so, I mean, that need social media, because you also get known through it, so work comes to you, or whatever. But me, I mean, when I started, normal, like any escalation, like any war, I went out and covered, that's it.
"What photos were you selling at the time, Motaz?" Well— I mean the first, the first photo, honestly, that day I had a worry. I took a photo of the, of the Israeli jeep at the opening of the Saraya, so— so a fellow journalist asked me for it, she hadn't caught the moment, and honestly I don't work with her agency and I don't like sending it to her, sending the agency that this photo is from me so she can sell it, so she felt that I was ruining it for her, so I gave her the photo, you can use it, and that's it, take it for you, and I'm not, I mean I'm not going to be looking to sell photos at this moment, because I feel there are a lot of disasters coming, you know? Not focused on selling, that the thing, that you focus on buying and selling, that's a problem, I mean forget it, you focus, work on yourself as a journalist and document what you can document.
So honestly I didn't care about the whole selling thing; lots of people used my photos and I let a lot of people use my photos, whoever wanted something would just talk to me. I did things with Al Jazeera English, I worked with Associated Press, the AP.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:44:33
What was your eye picking out at the time? What were you documenting?
Motaz Azaiza 1:44:36
I was looking more for the, the moment that's, for example, the emotions, the, the facial expression, the moment when, say, a kid, someone carrying a wounded person or whatever. Uh, the children, uh, the moment itself, the moment, like, the bombing or something. Uh, honestly I tried to be creative, but, but in conditions like this you don't want something artistic, you need to keep up, there's no moment, there's no time, you know? There's no chance to focus.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:45:08
And are you still, still, Motaz, scared in the background of what's coming? Or did the work take you? The adrenaline of the camera and the work and the movement.
Motaz Azaiza 1:45:16
The adrenaline hit the sky, you know? That's it, you're not, you're not — I mean if a missile came down on you, you wouldn't even ask, you're focused on what's in front of you. So actually, I mean, what happened happened, and what helped me more is that I have an artistic eye, so I have, I mean, visual nourishment, I'm visually fed on scenes, I mean I always used to follow, from before, look how they film, how they do it, look at the angles of things.
So for example the first drone video that came out of Gaza was a video of mine, nobody had filmed with a drone, right? And look what happened, subhan Allah. I was in, uh, al-Rimal, I was at the Press House, they hit al-Rimal. The next morning I went out to film and document, and I ran into a friend of mine named Malik. Uh, so Malik has the drone, okay? So I told him, Malik, listen, I want to take the audio at my end, I want you to get me a shot, we'll get all the destruction from whatever. And Malik did film and flew the drone, and I took the shot, which was "Hi, this is Motaz from Gaza. Today I'm gonna show you the such and such." I took the memory card from Malik, downloaded it at his place, went back to the Press House to work.
Malik goes home, the house was bombed on him and his family, right? They were martyred, God have mercy on them. Malik survived. All the drones were gone. Okay? So that video spread, and then that's it, all of Gaza collapsed into itself, people were displaced, everything went to hell.
Uh, so suddenly I'm walking with Hassan Eslaiah, God rest his soul, a thousand mercies and light upon you, Hassan, God have mercy on you. So Hassan says to me, Motaz, what's going on? I say, what's up? He says, it's like there's a bulldozer scooping up followers and dumping them on your account. I say, where? I don't know. Because we don't have data, I mean, but he had a SIM — most people in Gaza have an Israeli SIM, Telkom, for the internet. Yeah, so he says to me, yeah, I say to him, man, you hit refresh and it goes up by 200 thousand, 300 thousand, you know? Like, look where from, what's with them? What's happening to me? I don't know what's happening, I mean, seriously I'm doing my job like every time, there's nothing extra. So I say to him, honestly I don't know, man.
And suddenly I'm walking in the street, everybody knows me. Like, from where, how do they know me? I mean everyone's sitting in their houses. I mean we journalists are the people in the street, they're the ones in the street. In the hospitals and whatever, and we move around everywhere, nobody moves — either civil defence, or ambulance, or whatever, or us. That's it.
So people started knowing me, suddenly people are taking photos with me, suddenly people are filming me, hey guys, what's with you, what's going on? Suddenly a guy comes to me and says, what do you think about the Rafah crossing? I say, what have I got to do with the Rafah crossing, what's it to me, yeah. I mean, why are you asking me about— I told him, why? You want me to help you travel? Egypt's nice, whatever they do is fine, peace be upon you. Get off my back, what's it to you all? Seriously, what do you want? So— so suddenly a political opinion is being demanded of me, I mean what's it to me? I take photos, honestly I only do, like, I mean seriously I only document.
And I, for example, didn't document the al-Ahli Baptist massacre, it was far from me, I was in Tel al-Hawa at al-Quds Hospital, and I couldn't find anyone to take me. Who moves at night? Everyone's scared. So I was upset as a journalist, man, at a moment like that you have to document, I have to work on it, I have to whatever. And at the same time the ones around me, instead of helping me get to the information, they were competing with me over it, you know? I mean for example I have friends, like, he himself, he can't speak English, okay? And I could to use this, like, this footage or use the footage he has in a better way, so he starts feeling that I want him to— for it to spread. So I said okay, fine, I'll share it from him, totally fine.
So there was, one day I was at al-Quds Hospital, and suddenly panic started coming to al-Quds Hospital, to Tel al-Hawa. Okay. Suddenly people started coming out of Tel al-Hawa and coming to al-Quds Hospital, being displaced to it.
So a funny thing happened to me. I said I'd film, and I was documenting, and by then I was, you know, known. So there's a woman standing there, old, not old, an older woman, I mean in her fifties. The moment she saw me she started gasping. So I say, what's wrong? What's up, auntie, what is it? She said, I swear, just before the occupation told us to get out, I was sitting watching you, saying, God willing he'll never film us. An hour later I find you right in my face. I told her, ma'am, fine, I'll film you. That's it. She said no. And she took a photo with me that day. I swear I don't know what happened to her. I hope she's okay.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:50:02
Speaking of this woman, was it actually hard to film in the street? Before, you were telling me people didn't like people filming in the street. And once I saw a story, you went up to the door of a house and filmed a story I think, or a reel, saying that people are kick—, are kicking you out, I mean they're actually telling you, we don't want you filming us, who are you filming for. At the time there were sentences like that repeating among people from Gaza: who are you filming for? Why are you filming? And a kind of protectiveness started over— over people's condition and their dignity, I mean. At what stage did this happen, Motaz? At the beginning?
Motaz Azaiza 1:50:37
At the beginning it was.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:50:37
Did you get close to a scene other than the one you saw? Or is this just an exceptional scene?
Motaz Azaiza 1:50:42
Once a guy wanted to— No, once a guy wanted to hit me. I mean that's it, the man was going to hit me. But you have to make allowances for people. I mean he's not in a normal state. "Why did he want to hit you?" Just because I'm a journalist with a camera. He didn't want me documenting, I mean, the moment he was in. That's it, the man doesn't want it, sir, it's obvious. So we're also, we—
Ahmad Biqawi 1:51:00
I get it. I get it. But I'm trying to actually understand the level of people's sensitivity and what's behind it. Whether it's from a security background. From a dignity background. From the background of, we don't want you sitting there witnessing us. We don't want— We don't want to film the world. I mean we heard all these sentences from the journalist, I mean from the people.
Motaz Azaiza 1:51:19
Look. I found, we always, always, the journalist from Gaza has a complex about the words "filming what?", right. You could be anywhere. Anywhere. A little kid walking by, say, wants to scare you or make trouble for you. "Filming what?" Suddenly it throws you. I swear to God you get flustered. Any photojournalist in Gaza hears that word straight away.
So people, I mean, at the same time, at first I'd get flustered, honestly; after a while, if I'm not violating anyone's privacy and I find someone raising his voice at me, I go and raise my voice at him louder. Okay. So he shuts up, but that's it, I mean it seems his anger is really at you. You just happened to be in front of him. One of the photographers had his camera broken, I mean. And thank God, I mean, through the Motaz Foundation we compensated him for it.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:52:07
But is this for the same backgrounds as before the war, which are the two things, the security side and the side that people themselves have privacy — or are there other things, I mean other things that came up after the war that make people say don't film us?
Motaz Azaiza 1:52:22
Look, it differs from one person to another. There are people who don't like it. Normal, they're human beings like anyone else. Here I am in America walking around. There are people who say don't film me, it's normal, I mean. Right. There are hard moments, you don't have to. I mean the man might not want to remember it. Doesn't want to be filmed in a— in a situation like that. I mean some people's dignity is very precious to them, that you shouldn't come and film me, for example. And that doesn't mean that the one who agrees to be filmed, or agrees, that he thinks his dignity is worth less. But that's it, it differs from one person to another. And it's a hard moment.
And at the same time you— you're a provoking creature. I mean sometimes photographers don't appreciate the moment the person is going through. He shoves the camera in his face or he's stuck to him, doesn't give him space. A guy's lost his whole family and you're stuck to him. I'd have no choice, I'd want to hit you. You know? I mean it's according to the moment. So that's it.
And some people, for example, think I'm — I mean one day a guy came wanting to hit me out of nowhere. I say to him, why, man? What is it? He said, you work with such and such. So I was, say, working with a certain outfit or a certain channel or whatever. I tell him, man, I swear I don't work with them. No, like that, no. I told him, man, I'm just wearing the press vest, but I mean I swear I don't work with them. He said to me, these people film us as if we're heroes and they bring us someone to talk about us and that kind of talk and so on. So it depends on leanings, depends on whatever.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:53:41
Right. That's a stage, this isn't the beginning. This is a bit later; we started seeing this discourse when people in Gaza started feeling there was a gap between some channels, some platforms, and how people are actually living.
Motaz Azaiza 1:53:54
True, true, true. So the beginning, and I found, other than you— The big fame honestly helped me in Gaza. It gave me great trust from people. People started liking to see themselves on my page. You know? I swear. I swear to God, "I want to post about you." Come quick.
So it happened like this, that one day I'm walking in the street. I swear I was, I mean, deeply touched, hugely. Walking in the town when people had been displaced and whatever, and with us, I mean, women generally don't talk to you in the street, I mean generally they don't stop you and talk to you, I mean it's not a common thing at all. Suddenly I find women and men stopping me, greeting me, hugging me. God give you strength. God bless you and whatever. So I'm like, uh, I mean, wow.
One day I was heading home from al-Quds Hospital, a day before Israel attacked Gaza, a day before the ground incursion. So I'm heading home from al-Quds Hospital and I want to withdraw cash from the bank. From the Bank of Palestine at the Deir al-Balah junction. So I got there and found a long queue, I said, oh God, I'll be sitting here two or three hours, what am I supposed to do? I want cash and I want to go. I mean the war's on and I can't stop it. So I stood there, I didn't ask anyone's permission, then that's it, I said let me go home. I'll send my little brother to withdraw after me.
And suddenly, while I'm walking, a guy shouts at me, Motaz, come. And honestly I don't know who he is, except suddenly I find the whole queue making room for me, and I went in, let me withdraw the cash and go. Yeah. It's never happened in Gaza's history. Nobody ever does you the honour of stepping away from the ATM and giving up withdrawing money so you can withdraw. Suddenly I find people in a queue, I mean, you know? Like a really long queue. People, I swear I don't know a single one of them. Suddenly: "Hey, dear Motaz, come withdraw?" I say, yeah. "Go in, go in." I went in, and they didn't even make me feel I was taking too long, you know? And they were happy with me, I swear to God. And one's greeting me and one's doing whatever and one's taking a photo.
And I'm like, guys, who? What's going on? Who am I? What have I done? Right. So I started to understand, ah, I swear, you've become famous, Motaz.
Suddenly people started holding things against me. Ah, see, you've changed on us. I told him, man, I've never even spoken to you. Why would I change on you? I mean how have I changed on you? Suddenly someone would come up filming me. Hey, Motaz, good, he's fine. When you— he'd cut it off, and I'd say to him, why are you filming me?
Ahmad Biqawi 1:56:23
Okay, Motaz, Motaz, in this period I want to assume two tracks: on the level of, I mean, an official level, if we can put it that way, and on the level of the journalists' atmosphere. Here they're filming you and celebrating you and they're delighted with you and you're raising the voice of the Palestinian narrative in a, I mean, in a good way, and on the level of the people too they're pleased with you and you walk in the street and people love you and so on. When did you start feeling there was an imbalance in this— in this balance.
Motaz Azaiza 1:56:56
When someone comes out of the ambulance and says, for example, God damn Hamas, and I film him, and the ones around him, say, turn off his camera. So honestly I couldn't lower my gaze, I mean, or lower my camera away from the one who's talking; at the end of the day he's just holding his government responsible, the one that's responsible for him and that got him into a war like this. So I, I got into an internal struggle at first. Honestly, at first I kept away from the idea of publishing things like that. I mean, I don't know. Not, I mean, everyone. I'd never seen a journalist, a journalist from Gaza, publish something like that. Right.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:57:30
The norm is that you don't publish it. I mean, I mean—
Motaz Azaiza 1:57:34
I mean a lot of journalists lower the camera the second someone says something like that, they go and lower the camera. Come on, man, let them film it.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:57:38
Not like that. I want to say that the scene at the hospital, when they're live and the correspondent is there, if someone passes and says, God damn you, Hamas — you feel there's a kind of behaviour, like defensive, security, or whatever. People come out like that and take in the scene fast, I mean they cover it up. So the scene of someone filming and reviewing the material and publishing it, that doesn't exist. Before that, I want to ask, the first material you published, when was it? How long after the war started?
Motaz Azaiza 1:58:06
Roughly the first, the first material like that. Well, hang on, the first material like that was on 10 October or 9 October. Right. But it wasn't clear in this way. I was filming someone when they bombed the whole Rimal neighbourhood, and he started saying, this is what Hamas wanted, and he's cursing Hamas and whatever. But honestly I wasn't focused on him. I was filming generally, I mean not focused on him and I didn't hear it well, but he was saying that stuff.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:58:34
And that material was published and caused no controversy.
Motaz Azaiza 1:58:36
Nobody said a thing. Nobody talked.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:58:39
Nobody came back to you about it.
Motaz Azaiza 1:58:41
No, no, no, no, no.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:58:42
Right, it passed. You actually kept going.
Motaz Azaiza 1:58:44
Until, until around month 12.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:58:49
In those two months, or three. I just want to go back to the point you made. You were saying you were thinking to yourself and you didn't want to publish. I mean, can I understand the background of that hesitation?
Motaz Azaiza 1:59:03
First, that this is what we found our fathers and forefathers doing. Second, I mean I don't want to put myself in a clash with Hamas during the war, because you become a burned card, you know? I mean easily any accusation can be pinned on you, or someone hits you, or someone assaults you. And it happened in front of me to a lot of people, I mean for saying one word — and they're very fierce during the war, they can't stand themselves, you know? So you want to avoid that. So there was, I mean, once a guy, even one of their own sons, a journalist who was with me, I don't know, threw a word at a policeman and whatever, even though the man had been driven out of his house and whatever and had lost things.
That same night — I went home that night and came back the next morning and found his face red and blue and every colour. What's going on? What happened? So I found out that at night they'd jumped him, 16 of them piled on him, beating him, over one word. He's one of their own.
Ahmad Biqawi 1:59:58
Was that something organised? Was that something organised, or personal initiative, do you think, at the time?
Motaz Azaiza 2:00:05
No, they're together, I mean it'd be a certain group, or personal initiative. No, it's not organised, it isn't. But they're just like that, you know? — I get it.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:00:13
But I'm just trying to read the thing in the sense that it's the same parties that went after so-and-so, or did such and such, or whatever. The ones in the context of the aid, or in the context of the thieves, or in the context of the bakeries that were organised day by day, that existed too. And I know there's a level of managing the narrative. So the scene you're describing, is it personal initiative or one of the methods of imposing the narrative?
Motaz Azaiza 2:00:34
No, it's personal initiative, but organised. He's taking orders, following, you know? Something specific, I mean it's like he has been told, I mean he was told to do this, and this and that happened, you know? So even, even their own sons don't get spared from them. And honestly that's a sad thing. So I used to avoid it.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:00:57
Whoever goes outside — whoever steps out of line, I mean.
Motaz Azaiza 2:01:03
So for example, I mean, my house often has about 30 people in it, right, with all sorts of different political differences. But. There's no hatred or grudge between us, you know? I mean for example people come to me who don't like Hamas, or people close to Hamas and so on. Someone comes and talks to me about Hamas about a certain issue, so I said, well, what am I supposed to do for you all? What am I supposed to do for you? Yeah. So fine, okay, we curse each other joking around, you know? We throw words at each other. Like, where's the Hamas guy? Where's whatever? Where's whatever? Fine. So it's like that, you know? We talk normally but there are no problems between us.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:01:50
You're also adding another level for me, that during the war, I mean socially, you have a nice relationship with the public, I mean they honour you and give you a turn at the ATM.
Motaz Azaiza 2:02:02
I'm in the hospital sleeping — never mind society — I mean I'm in the hospital sleeping on the pavement and next to me is, say, a guy whose brother from Qassam was martyred in the war.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:02:11
I get it. And what I actually mean is, you're saying, from the circles, from the organisational circles, or I mean there's also a state of social acceptance that exists, that here, up to month 12, you had no problem. Can I take it that, I mean, with you starting to publish these videos, the scenes started, started to change?
Motaz Azaiza 2:02:32
Yeah, I walked in on them at the hospital, and the ones who stand with me, the second I walk in they'd come, they'd swarm me and stand with me — suddenly they're not coming. What's going on? Like, you're under attack. Where? On Twitter. Okay, what do you mean, attack? No, like, there's a campaign against you. What do you mean, campaign? I don't get it.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:02:54
"This is month 12?" Yeah.
Motaz Azaiza 2:02:57
Suddenly you find people out sitting in their cars. Motaz — "I told you all from the start that such and such." From the start, who? You don't even know me. I mean, when is "the start"? Everyone had an opinion about me. It became, for example, watch out for Motaz, tomorrow it'll show. And suddenly, their father — didn't I tell you Motaz is such and such. Man, I mean, what's that supposed to mean? So I found people putting out an opinion about you. People started talking. You started having critics. It got to the point that a guy comes to me and says, how come you, out of all the journalists, comb your hair? Hello? What's that supposed to mean?
Ahmad Biqawi 2:03:31
Okay, okay, one second, you — there's a difference between the thing, the campaigns we see on Twitter, and you. Today, in hindsight, do you have an explanation for it, that these campaigns — the people who work in media know it's not something spontaneous, I mean.
Motaz Azaiza 2:03:47
No, it was never spontaneous.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:03:48
A group of people decided—
Motaz Azaiza 2:03:50
Look, I started, the beginning. The beginning was from the Smart group of Hamas. And every journalist in Gaza is in it. Right. It exists, that's its name.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:03:58
What is this group?
Motaz Azaiza 2:03:59
The group is called Smart, it's Hamas media, its admin was the media director of the Rafah crossing. Director of media at the Rafah crossing, whatever. And by the way, one day he came and ate at my house during the war. And they're cursing me at the start of the war, suddenly they're swearing at me. I was, they'd added me to a group. I'm not a group person. You know what a group means? I don't know how to talk in a group. How am I supposed to talk with three people in a group in one place. I don't know how. So suddenly I find them swearing at me. They don't know we're in one group. So I replied to one of them, this and that. And then I came out with, what is this stupidity, I mean? Who even are you, talking to me in the first place? Seriously, who are you? "This is month 12?" Yeah.
Early 12, or from the 16th.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:04:41
Before 12. This, this group is one of multiple groups that were managing the discourse. I mean it controls the discourse and manages the discourse and manages the narrative. Can you give me examples of the forms of management? I mean what are the forms of controlling the discourse, what they want and what they don't want?
Motaz Azaiza 2:04:58
I mean for example, guys, focus on such and such — something's going on in a certain country, they're out in a demonstration, post from Gaza. Say we're with you, or we saw you, or we see you. Like, this one's saying something, attack him. They post the link of the post or whatever, or on Telegram they post, say, Telegram groups, like, attack him, attack him like this. Like sheep, I mean. And people go and attack him. They don't know, I mean they don't even know what it's about. Like, this phone number, this guy isn't with — he's against the resistance, say. They get someone's phone number and put it in the group. Attack him. Message him, curse him out. Swear at him. Make his life hell. Like that, I mean.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:05:37
Are you exaggerating or being precise, because this isn't journalists' work.
Motaz Azaiza 2:05:41
I swear to God I'm not exaggerating. And I swear to God I'm not saying anything false, and I don't need to lie. I don't even need to brazen anything out. And I wasn't aware in the first place. I wasn't conscious of a thing like that.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:05:51
I'm, I'm just asking because these, these groups usually aren't for journalists, they're for activists. And the factions have them, I mean they exist in, in, in all the factions.
Motaz Azaiza 2:06:02
Ahmad. Ahmad, sorry, but you — Khaled Meshaal — activists, from these groups. And then, when there was a split inside Hamas, they attacked Khaled Meshaal himself. You saw how they all piled on him at once. So, same thing, same method.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:06:14
But, but, but I'm — I'm actually getting at something. I'm saying: is this group specifically a group run by a journalist managing journalists, or is it one of those groups out there that have activists in them — they exist in Fatah too and in Hamas — and more than one group like that, a group that after a while becomes a strong, important group, and through it we back each other up and carry each other and pump people up and raise people up and bring people down. That's why I'm asking you: is this a journalists' group, the Smart group, or are these groups journalists' groups or activists' groups?
Motaz Azaiza 2:06:49
The one running it passes himself off as a journalist, but he's not a journalist. He's not, like, media as such — he's the movement's media. Government media. You know what I mean?
Ahmad Biqawi 2:06:59
So this — sorry — this group, Smart say, is its role like the journalists' groups, or like the role of, say, al-Minkhal, those al-Minkhal groups and al-Shamtali and whatever else, the many groups with lots of people in them.
Motaz Azaiza 2:07:14
Telegram — I'll just show you. But the, the WhatsApp group, Smart for example, that's people sharing, talking to each other. There's an admin and so on, and he puts in whoever he wants, takes out whoever he wants, says such and such. They post on it, like, guys, there's this going on, let's do that. And a lot of people are careful around him, because he smears people's image.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:07:33
Okay, why did you name this group? There are lots of groups like that, why did you name this one specifically?
Motaz Azaiza 2:07:36
Because the first abuse that reached me came from it. I didn't know who they were. The first abuse that got to me. And from people who are right around you, too.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:07:42
What did they abuse you over back then?
Motaz Azaiza 2:07:44
That day, over the video of the guy in Bureij camp who talks about the whole peace thing and all that. And about the charity thing, when he said "God damn Hamas" and so on.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:07:56
That person is actually a leader in the DFLP, right? He actually — yeah, God rest his soul, he passed away.
Motaz Azaiza 2:08:03
I mean, the tanks are coming in on the guy, and the guy tells me, come here Motaz, if you cut one word out of the video I'll put my foot in your face. I told him, sure, whatever you want. I swear to God. And I stood with him and I'm proud that I stood with him. And the man's a fighter, a man who was a prisoner of the occupation, who gave up his life and stayed in the service of the refugees.
I mean, with who? If I'm not going to stand with him, who am I going to stand with? If I'm not going to carry a voice, whose voice am I supposed to carry? So the man said, man, for 75 years we've been slaughtering each other. And Netanyahu, how far does he want to take us, he wants to take us to 100,000 martyrs, and in the end he'll sit at the table with us and sit down for understandings. Man, enough, we don't want to wipe out the state of Israel. We want to live in peace. But a peace that guarantees me my rights and my freedom and my dignity and my crossing and an airport and a seaport and this and that and that.
Honestly he didn't say anything more than what Hamas's own politicians have said. Right? I mean Hamas's politicians today say the very same thing the man said, and even more. I mean, the man didn't agree to international forces entering Gaza. They're there.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:09:05
The man, the man saying this — it's a discourse closer to the DFLP's discourse, and the discourse of the Palestinian elites, and Palestinian leaderships talk with the same logic, so it's not something strange, but in Gaza, because it's outside the prevailing picture, let me say it was strange.
Motaz Azaiza 2:09:24
All of Gaza talks like that. Gaza says more than that.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:09:27
But I, I, I — I've got Motaz in front of me now, I'm asking you more. These things that used to stir up controversy — were you posting them to say that they represent the different segments of society or the different opinions in society, or did they also necessarily, or did they also necessarily agree with you?
Motaz Azaiza 2:09:49
They agree with me, first of all. Second, this, this is the majority in Gaza. The prevailing narrative in Gaza. But the Gaza on the media isn't the Gaza I know.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:10:02
But what I mean here, I'm talking about the "God damn Hamas" clip specifically, and about, say, the clip that's "stop the war and we want to make peace," or a lot of the controversial clips, let me say, the ones that were mainly targeting Hamas or targeting its move. These represented you, I mean here you're not just playing a journalist's role conveying the narrative — you're actually filtering what you posted, and let me say it agrees with you. You didn't post anything that doesn't agree with you.
Motaz Azaiza 2:10:30
No, I did post — after I was done with that man and was heading down, there were people in the street who saw me, a woman, "God grant you victory" and with, with the resistance and so on, and I posted it, but nobody picked it up, because that one's the prevailing thing already. But that other one, because it was the opposite, they picked it up, saying I'm stirring up trouble. Me, regardless.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:10:46
And you as Motaz, you as Motaz, do both of those represent you? — They represent me. Or are you — or are you actually — this is what I'm trying to ask you. I mean, you filter.
Motaz Azaiza 2:10:58
You want the kid who got a slap from a settler woman not to be with the armed resistance. It's a question — you want Motaz not to be with— I embrace the armed resistance, and I said it to the face of the most hardline Jew in America. Right? I embrace the resistance. I embrace the armed resistance and I'm with it. But in a way that serves an interest — I mean, a tool that produces a result. Or that you, sir, make me feel that my worth to the armed resistance is high. Not "the idea of the resistance is more precious than our lives." No, man, no.
Why should the Palestinian be cheap in a Palestinian's eyes? Because if the Palestinian is cheap in a Palestinian's eyes, and cheap in the Israeli's eyes, and cheap in the Arab's eyes. Then. Fine, we'll leave you the country, man, and go. Keep it. That's how it'll end up.
So you've made people hate the idea of resistance and made people hate armed struggle. And you — this way of yours is harmful to the armed resistance fighter. Tomorrow you'll have people in Gaza turning on whoever picks something up and wants to shoot at an Israeli who comes near him.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:11:57
Motaz, was this your opinion already, or did it actually become your opinion after the attacks on you?
Motaz Azaiza 2:12:05
This opinion of mine represents — I mean, there isn't a street in Gaza. Let's say out of 10 people, 8 out of 10 people in Gaza. This opinion, every street.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:12:14
Let me say, let me also tell you — you're reminding me now that even the fiercest people, the ones who were saying "we want peace" or "God damn you, Hamas." They still had huge respect for the idea of the young guys who fight or give their lives and defend the country, as young guys, because they're their own kids, the kids of the areas, the kids of the neighbourhood. So they'd be praying for them the whole time. And in Gaza people used to distinguish between those young guys and the political level that makes the decisions or negotiates over stopping the war or over the areas or whatever. This fine distinction — could you see it and feel it? — Say a prayer on the Prophet.
Motaz Azaiza 2:12:47
God's blessings and peace be upon him. It's a very complicated thing, it's not the way you understand it. So I found, for example.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:12:53
Take your time.
Motaz Azaiza 2:12:53
I talk, I talk this way. Right? But the guy who shoots at the occupation, I'm not against him. Right? I'm not against him. I even pray for him. Like, that time when — the sheikh in the West Bank who was martyred. Sorry, I forgot the name.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:13:11
Farouk.
Motaz Azaiza 2:13:12
Yeah, when he was defending the land of Gaza. Yeah, content like that could get me disappeared into a cell if I post it. And I was in America, among them, among those people, and I posted it, and I'm very proud of it, proud of it to the absolute limit.
Where's my point? I found that you as a Palestinian have a choice, you have to have the right to self-determination. We've spent our whole lives struggling for the right to self-determination. So don't you, as a Palestinian, come and deny it to me. Like, you chose that you want to resist — absolutely, with all respect, you'll see me give you the warmest salute, I'll protect you, I'll have your back. You need help, I'll help you. But it's not okay that because you felt like resisting, you go and resist because that's what you want, okay? And you drag my whole family and my relatives along in your wake. If you want to die, don't take someone else with you who didn't choose to die with you. Okay? That's the whole story.
Like, for example, for example, something really infuriating in Gaza. Did you know that lately in Gaza people started thinking that whoever fires rockets at Israel during the war is a spy? Did you know that or not?
Ahmad Biqawi 2:14:26
I mean, yeah, because I can actually understand how it gradually became a thing. That they give the occupation a reason to bomb in return, yeah.
Motaz Azaiza 2:14:40
Where's the point? The rocket hasn't even — hasn't gone up yet, and suddenly you find leaflets coming down from Israel. Right? Meaning Israel fires rockets at itself so it can, so it can invade. Obviously, if someone's a resistance fighter and loves his country and loves his people. He's not going to give Israel a pretext to kill people and drive people out of where they are. Sure, someone'll come and tell you, Israel doesn't need a pretext to kill, man. Fine. But it needs a trigger, it needs something to grab hold of. "There, a rocket went up, right, move in." I mean, yeah, I'm not saying — I'm not defending — that it has a justification for everything. Israel loves to kill, with a justification and without one. But you, don't be the person who gives it that when you can't protect me.
I mean, from 7 October until now. Bring me one Palestinian human being in the Gaza Strip that Hamas's weapons protected. Seriously. Seriously. This is a question where I'm not grandstanding, not accusing, not calling anyone a traitor or a spy, not belittling any effort. Anyone who was resisting Israel. But seriously, your weapon, the one you're holding. Seriously, from the day it happened. I'm not even talking about before that. From 7 October until today. Did you protect one Palestinian child? You, say, as someone watching from outside. Did you see anyone's weapon protect a Palestinian from. From the occupation? It protected nobody. It didn't protect anybody. It protected nobody. It didn't protect.
So my problem is, man, let there be a point to it. I mean, resistance is an ongoing purpose. That's what I think. Right. So let there be a point for the fighter. Let him bring the whole people into the resistance.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:16:15
It's an argument about the method, about the move, more than anything else. And you actually distinguish between. Between the young guys who resist on the ground and the guys who politicise that act of resistance. Like that. And at the same time your argument is really about the impact and the usefulness and the results of this act and its effect.
Motaz Azaiza 2:16:39
I know. I know what's coming. Seriously, as someone from Gaza living the same reality. I don't sit around waiting two years to judge whether Hamas is right or wrong. No, I see the mistake right in front of me. I can see there's a mistake. I mean, I know. I know. I know what I've got. I know what I've got. So I can't be like the guy who's outside. Like, wait, let's see in another two years whether. Until the whole country is destroyed so I can tell them, you were wrong. No, I can see there's a mistake. I can't sit and wait on it. Because people are dying, more of them than have to.
I mean, the day Hamas agreed to hand over its weapons — to store its weapons, because they don't like the term. The term matters to them. Same meaning. They agreed to store their weapons. Well, you could have agreed back on 11 October 2023. Why? Why should 200,000 of us die? Why? Why? Why, man? Why is it easy for you that 200,000 of us die? Did the world stop today, did the world stop? It did not. Did it move an inch? No — 70% of Gaza is with Israel. What did you achieve for Palestine? He tells you, we put the Palestinian cause on the table. What table? You've sent the Palestinian cause back to the Middle Ages. You've left the women of Gaza peeing in buckets. You, I mean.
I mean, doesn't the sight of the women who've been humiliated in Gaza infuriate you? And you come and go after some critic who says something about you — oh, welcome, welcome. What's wrong with you people? What happened to you? Then he comes out and tells you, the PA has taken too long, it should come and take on its responsibilities. Then when the PA does come to take on its responsibilities, you go and blast them. "We will treat them the way we treat the occupier." Right.
So what do you want? Then you go on the media and abuse the Arab states, and at the same time you're telling me, where are the Arab states? And all the food and the aid that came into Gaza, all of it was from the Arab states. Not America, not European countries. Who was bringing us food? Arab states. So why should I sit there cursing them? Why should I call them traitors? In the end, you. I mean, you, the food. I mean, me, during the war. I'd turn the hummus tin over — from Jordan. This one from Egypt. This one from Qatar. This one from Saudi Arabia. This one, onions, from where? This one from Kuwait. This one from. Well. Well, fine. Why should I sit there cursing them and going after Gaza and calling people traitors and traitors and swearing and swearing. First, you, I mean.
I mean, me, talking two years on, I'm hurting for the people who. Me — excuse me — even the young guys who were martyred, the ones you have in mind. Like, do you think it's easy for me that they die? Seriously, guys like that, like that, energy like that. Why should I. Why should it be. Why should they die? The first ones to sell them out were their own leadership. The first ones to hold their lives cheap were their leadership. I mean, couldn't you — a while back they were martyred in the tunnel because they were trapped in the tunnel. Couldn't you have made a concession to get them out? They didn't get them out. So why should I. Why should I hold even their lives cheap? Who told you that, oh, because you're from Hamas you're cheap in my eyes? Or, go on, die.
No, on the contrary, I've tasted what it feels like to be a wanted man. During the war people started avoiding me. Nobody would answer me. Nobody would let me into their house. Their place. The cafés threw me out. Because I'm a journalist and it's not allowed and they're scared of being bombed. I've been through what it feels like to be wanted. And it's a shit feeling. Like shit.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:19:49
This. This. This scene you're describing gets mixed up. It gets mixed up. I mean, two scenes get mixed together in it. The scene of fear of Internal Security. And the second scene. I mean, I think also the shaming, the cancelling, the cancel situation that happened to you, and I want to get into its details.
Can I get you a glass of water? Rest the camera. Cut the camera. I want to get myself a glass of water too. I've made you hungry, not just thirsty, huh?
Motaz Azaiza 2:20:29
It weighs on my heart, but you know, honestly I felt there's space here where I can really talk, just say everything that happened to me. You always feel like there's something missing. So I hope here, God willing, you know.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:20:45
So far comfortable and happy? Good.
Motaz Azaiza 2:20:48
But you always feel there's something missing. I mean, there's something more to be said. I mean, there's something that hasn't been said. There's—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:20:55
Well, here we are, carrying on. And I've got more prepared for you.
Motaz Azaiza 2:20:59
Floor it.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:21:00
I think we're provoking you. Okay, we're back to the episode again now. And I want to go back to my point, the question of the, the difference, let me say, between the cancellation campaigns we were seeing — which I can read as, we want to burn this guy so we don't give him room to say anything — and the idea of people being afraid, say, to deal with you because you're a journalist, and they can actually see that wherever journalists move they become a target, especially famous people who are known like you, exposing the occupation's crimes, so it's natural for people to worry and say, get away from me. Do we have to separate those two, in your view? — Yeah, very much.
Motaz Azaiza 2:21:47
What's the difference? That's one thing — the first is organised, the second is spontaneous, from people.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:21:51
When did the organised one start, in your view? — Mid-December. Mid — I mean everything started in month 12. And the indicator itself is the Smart indicator, because honestly, for me that's not a sufficient indicator. Is there another indicator? — That's the start.
Motaz Azaiza 2:22:12
That's the start. What else is there? Okay, let's take it in order. Right? I found that they wanted something on me, not to make people hate me. Right? They couldn't find anything. I mean, a reason to go in and go, Motaz, look, Motaz, this and that. I mean, Motaz is still under the bombs, under the fear and all that, and delivering and filming and documenting. So they can't find anything, they don't know how to attack me properly, there's really nothing strong. Then Motaz left. Boom, that's it, he left. Suddenly there's a new excuse, a new attack coming out, that we—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:22:51
Left where? Left Gaza? — Yeah, yeah. How long in did you travel, Motaz?
Motaz Azaiza 2:22:57
Me, about 108 days. Four months, just under. So. And you feel like every single day of the war needs a podcast of its own. Every day. Every day is full. Full. Honestly, I'll tell you, it's a million times easier on me than any day outside Gaza. Honestly. Honestly, when you're among your people, your family, serving, helping, documenting and so on. You feel there's a point to what you're doing. Honestly, it's easier and better. Much.
So I kept going in Gaza until one day I started feeling, man, I'm filming the same thing. The same scenes repeating, the same thing. What's it for in the end? What actually happens? Just likes and showing off, and I'm the one gaining followers, I'm the only one actually benefiting. So I said, man, no. And I said maybe in two, three months the war stops. I said, let me get my family safe and go out and make some noise outside. That was the whole idea of travelling. I want to get out and make noise and go around and talk and move the world. So I pulled myself together and said, right, and I left.
Honestly, I was lucky when I left, because I didn't know where to go, to be honest. And Qatar told me, welcome. So I didn't know — Qatar, first time. Where do I go? I mean, with what? We only knew Egypt, in Gaza we didn't know, we weren't open onto any other country. So I said, right, Qatar, Qatar, and I left. I swear to God it was so random that something this fateful was random.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:24:55
This, all of this. We haven't even got to that stage yet. I mean, we're still on the thinking before the exit.
Motaz Azaiza 2:25:01
No, this, this was the day before. But I'm telling you, even as I was going out through the crossing I decided.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:25:07
The thoughts — what was going through your head?
Motaz Azaiza 2:25:09
I'm standing on the roof and I ask a friend of mine who was in the house, I say, should I go? He told me, go, travel, man, get your family safe and all that, and in a few months the war's over, you come back, you do your work, you sort things out, it all settles down, done.
And the thing that pushed me towards the idea of travelling is that in the period when I decided I wanted to travel, the tanks were literally at the end, the very end of our street. So for me that was it, they'd closed in on everything. Where am I supposed to go? There's nowhere left. So that's it, I had no idea that they might just withdraw, no big deal. No, I figured the tank that's coming, tomorrow they'll haul me out in a box. That's what was in my head.
So I said, right, that's it, what do I do? So I filmed everything, I did everything, and I kept the night going, doing a lot of stuff, and once I dropped it. I couldn't get the equipment in. And, uhh. And that's it, I was shaken, I didn't know what more to do. Seriously. It never crossed my mind that there was worse coming. I couldn't have imagined it. I mean, when you're there you don't know there's worse. You think this is the worst thing. No, it turned out there was worse and worse and worse and worse. I didn't know there was a famine coming. I didn't know there'd be airdrops. I didn't know. So I left.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:26:31
But Motaz, at the time — let me take you back a bit, if you'll allow me. I don't mean it as a prejudgement. Not questioning your feelings. But don't you feel that what you're saying sits with, with the cancellation campaigns that were on you, with your own account now of them starting to close in on you on the ground level, on the narrative level — you'd be standing at the hospital gates and nobody would look at you, or they'd avoid you. So weren't you thinking that getting out of, out of this thing too was a mercy for you?
Motaz Azaiza 2:27:03
I mean, I wasn't thinking about it that way, because — right — you're, even for the people around you, you're basically. Most of the people around you were treating the whole thing like a trend, they want the thing that gets them engagement, you know what I mean? So he stays away from the attack, because they'll attack him and he's not willing to be attacked. I ask him, I say, man, you know the thing, why are you talking like this? He said, I don't want to get attacked. So I say to him, oh, wonderful. He said, yeah.
And all of it — like, I lost 4 million followers. I swear to God it didn't move a hair on my head. I mean, I don't own them anyway. In the end they're not, not mine. I don't treat my account as if it's mine, even after what happened, no. So honestly it didn't affect me in the sense of, oh, I couldn't digest—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:27:45
But hadn't it got to the stage where there were friends around you avoiding you, even personal relationships avoiding you, because you'd been framed somehow, or a label had been stuck on you? So I'm trying to imagine your days weren't very happy while you were in Gaza, because actually—
Motaz Azaiza 2:28:05
No, it came from certain people. But while I was in Gaza, thank God — if I went back to Gaza tomorrow, full on full, absolutely, the same people would come and stand with me and take pictures with me and post about me and all that, no problem. There aren't any problems. No, no, it's got nothing to do with it. I mean, this whole story of mine is social media. I go back to Gaza, the Hamas kids themselves, you'll find them standing with me, saying hello to me, and I'm the big man, fine. You understand how it works, this is Gaza. Seriously, this is Gaza.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:28:28
Explain it to me, how? How? How does that work? — Well, sir. I mean, how does someone swear at you on Twitter, or there are campaigns against you, but if you showed up now, how do you imagine they'd take you in their arms, how?
Motaz Azaiza 2:28:39
Sir, look, let me open Twitter right here in front of you. Where's Twitter? For example. I swear to God. Like, a while back someone's cursing me, cursing me on Twitter. Right? Yeah, and threatening me. He's a Palestinian who loves Hamas, living in an Arab country. Okay? He's abusing me, swearing, swearing — go into his account, type in Motaz, it's all insults at me. On 26 March this year. What did he send me? He tells me, I was wrong in how I judged you at the start. Turns out you know your people better than anyone. I'm sorry. But. But there's no way any of what he did wrong gets undone. That's it, it caught the trend. So yeah, when he insulted me he did it in public; when he apologised he apologised in private.
You know what I mean? So the same people — sometimes people come out and abuse me in Gaza. Honest to God, he doesn't know who I am. And honest to God, he doesn't know what I do. He doesn't read a word, nothing. He just saw people attacking and saw the trend, so he goes and puts my name in. That's it, just like that. Out of nowhere. At the same time, there are people who were attacking me and getting help from my foundation. No problem. I'm cool with it. So there's this thing called individual salvation that took shape in Gaza after this genocide, or during this genocide.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:30:06
Sorry, but this is an important point. First of all you mean, generally — this is an obvious thing, that there's a difference between people's behaviour on social media, how they express themselves, and how it is day to day, in life or in your personal relationships.
Motaz Azaiza 2:30:18
I mean, for example, I had at my house — yeah, I had at my house a guy, a millionaire businessman in Gaza. Every time I went out I'd buy things from him, from his shop. He's got a clothes shop. He wouldn't leave a single filthy word unsaid about Hamas. And me, I'm just going along, I don't say anything, fine, keeping it to myself. He wouldn't leave a filthy word unsaid. Then he'd come round to my place, at home. And he wouldn't leave a word unsaid about them, cursing them out. Anyway, the guy pulled himself out and left. I couldn't believe it. Suddenly the same person who used to swear at Hamas is suddenly a resistance man, supporting them, posting Qassam videos, proud, the resistance and all that. Yeah. How can you be like this? Somebody tells me, he's chasing the trend, this and that, engagement.
And after a while he flipped for real, that was it, he became like that, fine. And he's fine deceiving people and talking that way.
And even from Gaza — you're from Gaza — we're not angels in the end. Among us there's the good one, the bad one, the deceiver, the thief, the liar. So this is someone I lived with my whole life, I know him. Even he ties his losses to Hamas. But in the end he exploited — he exploits anything for his own benefit. He sees the whole thing's a loss, a loss for him. So he changed colours. And these people exist too, there are plenty like them.
And you, for example — like, for example, this is on my own personal level. I mean, I get to the point where on my account there are people in the White House following me. The whole world follows me. Right? So then, for example — when I needed to do something in Gaza, a lot of people were scared to film a video with me, for a particular thing. They were scared that, say, somebody would question them, something. So they refused. At the same time I'm sitting with influencers from outside, from around the world. They show me their messages — it's people from Gaza writing to them, begging them to share their account or to take a picture for them from Gaza. Like, "you're — we're in Gaza, post for us" — they want a trend and engagement. I tell them, I say, damn you people, I'm one of your own, I mean, I have more claim on you and you have more claim on me, we're supposed to stand with each other.
But no, we've got this trait, this problem, that we love the stranger, we help the stranger over our own. And honestly that's a problem. For example, for example, when Assaf won Arab Idol. What happened? Wallah, this guy — we used to bring him to the party to sing for us for 20 shekels. Wallah, that's how it was, I swear to God. This guy used to melt down copper and sell it and stuff. You know what I mean? Even though Assaf is cleaner than any Palestinian singer, the cleanest Palestinian voice, the classiest Palestinian figure. You're telling me — with all respect, of course, to the two people you mentioned. Diss and getting dissed and how — I don't get it. But I—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:33:06
Diss, diss, man.
Motaz Azaiza 2:33:07
Diss, man, that's outsider talk, that's not in Gaza.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:33:09
What diss? No, that's over in New York where you are, habibi, that's not where I am.
Motaz Azaiza 2:33:13
No. So honestly, wallah, I don't know it. So I'm telling you, for example — sorry, no — honestly I consider Assaf a voice that does us credit, holding on to his cause, deeply affected by what happened in Gaza, loyal to Gaza to the last moment. I mean, Assaf, Assaf is a son of Gaza and he sang everywhere in the world except Gaza. When he came, Hamas stopped him doing a concert, because he's an infidel, an apostate, blasphemy — what they'd call flagrant unbelief or whatever. And he's a son of Gaza. Gaza has the first claim on him. That's why I'm telling you, Gaza hurts you. Wallah, it hurts you. You love it and it hurts you, that's the way of it.
Then look, even the attack — the problem that happened between some new young guy and this one. The first thing he said? That you're exploiting this cause, exploiting the cause. I told you, every Palestinian sees the other Palestinian as exploiting the cause. All of us, really.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:34:13
And there isn't, there isn't really anyone in all these contexts who isn't benefiting from the scene, directly or indirectly.
Motaz Azaiza 2:34:21
By the way, the problem is with the people, the problem isn't with those guys. It's the people who make it. I mean, take a singer — why would I expect him to liberate Palestine? It's a question.
Why do you put people in roles that aren't their roles? Me, for instance, I'm a photojournalist. Did I ever tell you I was anything else? Honestly, I don't say that. They made me into whatever, they made me a politician, they made me this and that and the other. I talk about reality. I swear I never went too far at anyone. I never grabbed somebody from the West Bank and said to him, you — like, your Abu Mazen, man. I never said that to anyone. I've got nothing to do with you. You're wrong, you say the PA is wrong — man, you're wrong. If the PA had been in Gaza I'd—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:34:59
There's no way out, there's no way out, Motaz, of this story — it just goes round in circles in this context.
Motaz Azaiza 2:35:07
That's why we, we—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:35:10
Not us — there's no Palestine — there's no Palestinian who can strip themselves of their Palestinian-ness in front of anybody. However much you forget it and tune it out and leave and come back, in the end there's a form of engagement, negative or positive, that you run into everywhere, you don't get out of it.
Motaz, I want to go back, I want to go back to the point about the cancellation campaigns themselves that you were talking about. When do you think they started? I mean they started in December, as you say, out on the ground. But you still say you travelled and still weren't feeling it. When did you actually feel there were, there were people taking swings at you?
Motaz Azaiza 2:35:43
In, in March 2024 I was invited to some people's place in Qatar for iftar in Ramadan. Okay? I'm sitting eating iftar and my phone rings, a friend of mine called Youssef is calling. Motaz, Mohammed was martyred. I say, which Mohammed? He says, Mohammed al-Rifi. I say, but that's the one I know. He says, wallah. Mohammed is my friend, the photographer I mentioned at the start. He and I used to go out shooting and documenting in Gaza and all that. He hated the war. And before that he'd been messaging me — I wanted to try to help him, to get him out of Gaza, to send him money and so on.
So suddenly this Youssef tells me he was martyred, and he'd been picking up a flour delivery, if I remember, the first massacre, at the Kuwait roundabout in Gaza City. So this — there was a strike that came down on them and Mohammed was hit and was martyred. And it was the first time I cried since the moment I left Gaza — over someone like me, someone I spent a lot of time with, someone in the same state as me, the same head, the same situation. He'd asked me for help and honestly I couldn't help him. He was in the north at the time. So Mohammed was martyred. I — I got as angry as I could get.
So I went on Twitter and wrote, I think — why should anybody who doesn't care about the blood of his own people, his own folk, matter to us? Something like, God damn anyone who doesn't care about his own people, that kind of thing. So there was a huge attack, that I'm sitting there cursing Hamas and Sinwar and the resistance and all that. And after that a lot of people avoid me, after that a lot of people go, you're cursing the resistance and this and that. That's it. But you feel how, for people, you're just a trend or a stance or a famous person — they don't deal with you as a human being. They don't get that you can get angry and upset and all that.
And this is something I haven't seen in America, for instance. Here everyone curses everyone else. I haven't seen one person tell another, you're a traitor. That kind of thing. For instance, Mamdani cursed Trump's whole history. Trump receives him, no problem, he said what he said, fine, you need him. Except us. You know what I mean? Seriously, when I curse the people who ruled me, why do you feel I'm a traitor? Why do you call me a traitor?
Ahmad Biqawi 2:38:33
Because there's a point where the roles get mixed up together, that's the problem. You know, there's something, Motaz — in this conversation, in this episode, I actually bet on it beforehand, talking with friends, that there's something different about you compared to us: your awareness comes out of a place where you only see that Hamas ruled you. So even all through the episode as you talk — when you compare yourself to me, or to a Palestinian woman outside in an Arab country or wherever — you even use the term, like, the one who ruled me, or this party that ruled me, or I was cursing someone who ruled me.
But people in general don't see it that way. I mean, people in general outside Gaza don't see it only that way.
Motaz Azaiza 2:39:15
Can I tell you a story of an injustice that happened.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:39:17
I think this is a key thing.
Motaz Azaiza 2:39:19
Can I tell you a story of an injustice that happened, and I hope it gets around. This is an injustice that happened and the man it happened to never talked about it. Right? Because he feels ashamed — inside Gaza people can feel a sense of shame or embarrassment or— So this guy, a photographer like me, in 2017 he was shooting at the Great March of Return before— before Hamas politicised it. He got shot in the leg, and the round that came out of Israel was an exploding one. Okay? His leg was shattered. He wants treatment. There's no treatment in Gaza. He went out to get treatment over in Turkey.
He went out to Turkey for treatment and the guy was lost, he lost his way, lost his way in his life. Okay? So he kept trying to find work, to get back to his life, he couldn't, after what happened to him. And he's one of the finest — one of the most senior photographers in Gaza, one of the best photographers in the world. You'd compare him to world-class stuff. Anyway, the guy got by. He was taking a painkiller, for the pain, Tramadol. And it's medical, I mean, not just some painkiller. And he came back to Gaza after years, roughly a month or four months before the war. So anyway, he went home — after he was wounded at the marches, which were for Palestine, and he was covering them as a Palestinian journalist. So he was hit in the leg, found no treatment in Gaza.
Okay, the camera's overheated, hang on a second.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:41:01
Keep going, we've got an hour.
Motaz Azaiza 2:41:03
Okay, but the camera's overheated, let me just let it rest.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:41:12
Keep going, we'll use the camera we've got on the laptop, it's not a big deal.
Motaz Azaiza 2:41:16
Fine. Just let it cool down a bit. So anyway, he had a tattoo on his hand. Regardless of my own position — I'm not, I'm not talking halal and haram right now. Anyway, after he'd lost everything, and his leg was pretty much a disaster, the nerves shot, wrecked. So the guy goes in at the crossing, the Rafah crossing, with Tramadol on him and a medical prescription from the hospital where he was being treated, because this is a medical thing, not, not drugs. They couldn't read it, they say, the prescription's in English or whatever. Like, Tramadol, right, come with us. And on top of that he's got a tattoo on his hand, he's got a tattoo — you'll have it removed. How am I supposed to remove it? Whether I did it or I didn't. Nothing doing.
He came in through the Rafah crossing after he'd been in Turkey since 2018, or the year 2018. 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. I mean five years, six years. They took him off to jail. He sat there three months. He got out two weeks before the war, before 7 October. And his life was wasted. I'm telling you, today, today — I mean I'm telling you, the guy, just imagine his luck. Seriously, he lost his way, he was gone.
And that's one, one of the forms of injustice that used to happen in Gaza. That nobody — nobody would accept. I mean, if that story had happened in the West Bank, oh my God! They'd have torn the PA's honour to shreds. They wouldn't have left a word unsaid about the PA.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:42:57
Okay. Motaz, you're sitting here talking as a photographer, as an activist, as a human being who was ruled by Hamas. But from another place it's clear you're somebody politicised. From Gaza, actually — the Palestinian public saw you go and greet, or President Abu Mazen received you and you got photographed with him. And you've got posts, posts saying that you're a son of Fatah, which is the opponent and the rival of Hamas in another sense. Right up to your name being put forward at the Eighth Congress.
So really, if I'm to put it this way, everything in the conversation so far has been on the idea of Motaz the human being and Motaz the photographer and Motaz as just someone who happened to live in Gaza — there's a political level that you haven't pointed to up to this moment.
Motaz Azaiza 2:43:47
Right? I'm getting to it.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:43:49
Are you turning the camera on? Yeah.
Motaz Azaiza 2:43:55
Well, depends how hot the subject gets. Yeah, the camera overheated and I've heated up too. So look, sir, I left Gaza on 24 January 2024. Right? Abu Mazen met me at the end of February. Why? He'd come to Doha, like. They called me. Why? I don't know. Why did they call you? Meaning — hang on a second, hang on, I'm getting there.
I said, who did I meet before Abu Mazen? I was in Doha and Hamas's office was there in Doha. They were sitting right there — did they ever say, wallah, Motaz, we'd like to see you, to say hello, well done for your efforts? They didn't. And I still didn't have a clear political position. Right? So they didn't, not one of them called me, I swear, nobody respected me, not one of them valued me. So why should I respect them and value them? And why should I do them any favours? Anyway.
So one day some people called me, said there's a session for Palestinian leaders. I said, sir, who? They said such and such, come along. So I went, and as I'm going up in the lift in a hotel in Doha, I found my friend's father, who is currently the justice minister. Dr Shurahbil. And I went up and found people — who did I find? Tamim al-Barghouti. And I found Mustafa Barghouti. And I found a bunch of people, Palestinians from abroad and so on. So anyway, I'm telling you this from the beginning so you get the whole thing, nobody else has got it, so you know the story.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:45:43
All that's missing now is for you to tell me the name of the hotel, to tell me we were at the Sheraton.
Motaz Azaiza 2:45:47
It was the Sheraton. Yeah, right, right, right, the Sheraton, the Sheraton, right, right, the Sheraton. So I went up and they said we're going down to dinner and so on. And—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:46:01
Who spoke to you back then? The president's office? No, no, no, this had nothing to do with the president's office. Ah, the leaders, the people in charge of the leaders.
Motaz Azaiza 2:46:11
No, no, not — so I don't know who called me that day, I think from the office of—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:46:14
And the president was sitting with Mustafa Barghouti, with Tamim al-Barghouti.
Motaz Azaiza 2:46:17
Not the president, not the president. I'm telling you, the man who's currently justice minister, in the—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:46:22
Ah.
Motaz Azaiza 2:46:24
Yeah. The guy's very decent, Shurahbil, to be fair, that's how God makes them. So I go in, and that day there were people from Azzam al-Shawa's office coming back too, so I sat down, it was a gathering. So I went in — anyway, who's chairing the gathering? Mustafa Barghouti. This guy, I see him on the media, he comes on, but apparently I don't know him, I don't know him, honestly I don't know him, I don't know his history and I don't know what the Mubadara movement is or what — I don't get it. Right? So I'm sitting there and they're introducing everyone to each other, and it got to two people sitting next to me, a guy and his sister, and his sister, and me.
So he's talking, and I said, we've got to — I'd just come out of Gaza, only a few days, and I'd turned the planet upside down. So I'm saying, let's give — I said, space to a figure who addressed the Western world. Got our voice out. And that we love life, and exposed the occupation in a beautiful way. I thought, who else in the room, who else? So I straightened myself up, like he's about to introduce me — and who's he talking about? About someone who at the time used to go and do dabke shows in Europe and all that and America, Palestinian dabke. So I... And he skipped me completely, as if I wasn't there, and I don't know — I'd greeted him and everything, and wallah, there was nothing.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:47:58
Why, though? I don't know.
Motaz Azaiza 2:47:59
Was it deliberate? Honestly I don't know to this day, since you're asking.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:48:04
But what's this got to do — just so I understand the link — what's it got to do with the president business? Nothing.
Motaz Azaiza 2:48:09
I'm telling you, I've given it to you from the beginning, the stories of what happened.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:48:13
Ah, you've prepared yourself for this question.
Motaz Azaiza 2:48:15
Well, you've dug up something nobody's dug up before.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:48:19
Okay.
Motaz Azaiza 2:48:19
So honestly, the thing provoked me, like, what's with this guy. But fine, I was talking with His Excellency the minister next to me, and I sat a while and excused myself and went home, and honestly I had nothing on my mind.
Then I find myself with Abu Mazen — in that period I was trying to save someone very dear to my heart. You know? Someone I loved a lot, someone, you know, a relationship, the emotional side of me. I—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:49:04
You mean a she, not a he.
Motaz Azaiza 2:49:06
A she. Maybe because I haven't talked about this before, but she's the love of my life, let's say. Right? So I was trying to save her, trying to get her out of death. She was very close to death, she was — in my head I was with her — and I'm trying to save her, after a house or a palace got destroyed. And she's all I can see, right then it didn't matter who I was meeting, all that's in my head is her.
So I'd hired somebody, someone had put me on to someone, to hand over money and so on, and I transferred money on the black market on the basis that I'd pay a coordination fee, something urgent — I got scammed out of a big sum. So I don't know what to do, and I'm going round in circles like a chicken trying to find a way, and I don't want — and everybody's talking to me wanting to get out, wanting me to help them get out, and I'm completely focused on one thing, because, you know, the heart wants what it wants.
So my phone rings, they say, hello, Motaz, this is so-and-so from the presidency's office. The president has arrived in Doha, he wants to say hello to you. And we've called Wael Dahdouh and he's on his way. I said, okay, fine, alright. So what's in my head, I thought, right, I'll go meet the president, he'll ask me, what do you need? I'll tell him this and that, he'll definitely do it for me. So honestly, boss, I went and put on the suit and all, sorted myself out — I was still really worn out and you could see the exhaustion on my face.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:50:43
How many days had you been out and you already had a suit — you'd gone and got yourself stuff.
Motaz Azaiza 2:50:47
Okay, what's the problem? This too, there's no—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:50:49
There's no problem. There's no problem. Now no, don't open the door about—
Motaz Azaiza 2:50:53
No, no, I'd gone and got a suit.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:50:54
And he puts gel in his hair too.
Motaz Azaiza 2:50:55
No, why — as soon as I arrived in Doha, I got to Doha.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:50:59
But take me the right way, it's just— I understand there's sometimes tension over the idea that we wear suits too and all that — that's not what I mean. I just mean, you'd arrived soaked and covered in dust and not seeing human beings in front of you. Just, lucky you, you had a suit. That's it, just to be clear.
Motaz Azaiza 2:51:13
Because, look, before that, 30 January was my birthday. Right? I arrived in Doha on 25 January. Who was the first figure I saw? Sheikha Moza. Her name is Sheikha Moza. She's the first person who called me and respected me and valued me and sat with me and wanted to see me and hear from me and get to know me. So I'm meeting her for the first time, am I going to turn up like— I mean, what am I supposed to wear, a saucepan? I don't have to look scruffy just because I'm from Gaza, so I had to go and get something.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:51:42
So the president's suit wasn't its first outing.
Motaz Azaiza 2:51:45
No, the second wearing. But don't tell them that. So I went and met her and got to know her and went home, all good. So the president was coming, and I went to see him, I was with a friend, I changed my clothes and went, that's it. So I'm sitting there. I said, look what happened. So I'm sitting, sitting there waiting. So Hussein al-Sheikh, Abu Jihad, comes out and throws his arms around me. This guy, I don't know him, you know what I mean. Greeted me.
I went in, met Abu Mazen. I greeted the president. I sat down, I said, of course, all these leaders. First time I meet them — like, it's been a long time, where have you been? You know what I mean? So there was some anger inside me towards them, that Gaza's been left to itself, people, and I've just come from there, people left on the ground, out in the open. And you're supposed to — I mean, who am I supposed to direct my anger at, my demands at, what am I supposed to do? So I gave them a speech like that. So I'm sitting there and they're watching me. So Abu Jihad, Hussein al-Sheikh, says to the guy next to him, like, Motaz isn't Hamas. So I... So I'm like in shock, you know what I mean? I couldn't focus. So I sat with Abu Mazen and I'm talking and so on and all that.
We talked a bit and he said to me — and to be fair, to be fair, credit to him for how he dealt with me, the way I ought to be dealt with. He spoke and said to me, you did more than was required of you. And every Palestinian is an ambassador for Palestine, and well done, a thousand times over. And we'll be a state, and whatever happens happens, we have to bear it, this is our fate and this is our lot. And he went into details with me, as if, as if he'd been following what I do on the ground. Right? And he made me feel my impact on the world, made me feel how much of an impact I have, how much difference I make for the cause.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:54:01
Because he gave you attention and appreciation at a moment when you needed it.
Motaz Azaiza 2:54:05
Really, yeah — when you come out having done something for your country, who's going to— you know. Regardless, whether I—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:54:12
Especially with all the public noise going on at the same time, and so on. And then a person comes along who didn't just embrace you, he valued you.
Motaz Azaiza 2:54:19
He just said to me, well done. And that makes a huge difference to you. Right? So I got up, we said goodbye, we took the photo and I left. Nobody asked me what I needed or what I wanted, and man, my heart, my heart was dying.
So I grabbed Hussein — Hussein, God bless him — I said to him, pass this on for us, this and this and this. Can you help me, can we try? Which Hussein? Hussein. The president's secretary. He told me, don't tell anyone — well, I've blown the whole thing open, but it's two years ago now. So he said to me, fine, send me passports and inshallah it'll work out. He didn't give me a date or a promise or anything. He said, we'll try. Alright.
I said, I'm focused on the guy who scammed me. I'm travelling and meeting people and nations and sitting with princes and presidents and all that. I started focusing on Mohammed the conman. I've got this whole thing going, the money too. But I can't focus on him because I'll lose a lot. So honestly I went into a really big psychological crisis and...
Ahmad Biqawi 2:55:25
They got them out for you.
Motaz Azaiza 2:55:27
So I'd lost hope. Then a month and a half later, a little while before they took the Rafah crossing. He called me, said let's move on the crossing, and they got out, thank God. So honestly — why should you only remember the negative? You remember it too when people did right by you or whatever. So credit to them, honestly. And I saw respect from them.
I was in Doha, I went to pay condolences to Abu al-Abd, God rest him, for the martyrdom of his sons, because his son had been in touch with me once. I got to know him. So when his sons were martyred and all that, I went to give him condolences. Condolences, welcome, how are you? And he introduced me to Khaled Meshaal. These are Deir al-Balah. These are originally Deir al-Balah, this and this and this. And they took a photo of me with Abu al-Abd.
But I asked them not to publish it. Because I move around and bring in support for my country and for UNRWA and for Gaza. I don't want it used — I'm going to do my duty as a Palestinian, that's all. I don't want it taken — I also travel to a lot of countries and so on, and there are people who'd hold it against me, use it as a way in to hurt me or to stop me working. So, fine.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:56:42
Do you have a copy of it? No.
Motaz Azaiza 2:56:46
No, because his office took it as an insult — you talking to us and not publishing it. You know what I mean? And I didn't mean it as an insult, I meant I want to go on being useful to people — to this day I've delivered donations into Gaza that neither the UN nor any organisation has, millions of dollars. So why would I stop that when I'm genuinely, actually helping people? Over a photo? I just put it aside, keep it for history, for the memory. So I went, I greeted him, I paid my respects and so on.
Then a friend of mine came, one of the people who filmed me during the war, asking how I was, checking on me. He said, you idiot, get a photo with Abu al-Abd and post it so you balance things out. And how did I take that? That I'd be exploiting his blood and his sons. You know? Exploiting martyrs' blood to whitewash myself with certain people or a certain group or a certain audience. So I told him, no chance in hell — let them keep cursing me from now till doomsday. Honestly I'm not willing to exploit anybody's blood so people will be happy with me, and I'm not willing to damage myself either, when I'm sitting here helping people — over a photo. No, that's it, there are circumstances that decide it.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:58:00
Okay, this discussion — the thread of it is clear to me now, but I want to go back to the point about the photo with Abu Mazen. It's as if there was more in it than just thanks for the incident you're describing, and your need in that moment for recognition and attention made you express yourself that way. Because, you know, you even came under a lot of attacks. But your whole defence was reasserting the photo itself. And for me the photo isn't much of a problem in the first place. But I'm trying to see what's behind reasserting the photo like that — that there's a feeling of gratitude inside you, or a feeling of appreciation, or—
Motaz Azaiza 2:58:42
No — sorry. It's just that he valued me, that's all, and that's normal, that's expected, that's what should be expected. You know? Like when you say, the Palestinian ambassador, he's excellent. He did his job, he's the Palestinian ambassador, nothing more than that. So when he valued me — whoever looks at us with one eye, we look at him with two. Okay? Another thing, you—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:59:02
Okay, Abu al-Abd — you told him not to publish the photo. Did you see him with two eyes in a different way? I didn't see, I didn't say Abu al-Abd.
Motaz Azaiza 2:59:09
You see the photo. I said it to the office.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:59:10
Understood, understood.
Motaz Azaiza 2:59:11
I'm not saying Abu al-Abd.
Ahmad Biqawi 2:59:12
You told his office not to publish the photo. Were you expressing some appreciation in a different way, to them, to that crowd?
Motaz Azaiza 2:59:20
Let me go back. There's a feeling — I told them, they know me, the office knows me from Gaza, I'd say to them, in Gaza I was there and I'd see them, I know them, one from Rafah, one from Abu Samin, whatever. Listen, Abu Hamid, this and that. The photo, if it just leaks or something — better the Jew doesn't get hold of it, because I travel and bring in donations for the UN, so he doesn't get hold of it, that's all. And even then, whatever it is I say it to his face, I'd tell him I met him. I've got no— I'm a journalist at the end of the day. I'm not—
Ahmad Biqawi 2:59:43
I, I, I've got no— I get you. But what I'm saying is, at first you told me that these people didn't value you. Then you went to President Abu Mazen, he valued you and gave you — the way you put it, that was the first moment of recognition after you left the country. And I understand the whole idea of how besieged our country is. And you think that the moment you get out, straight away you'll find some expectation met, or some attention. So the first person who actually gave you that, in a Palestinian context, was the president. Then you went to — you went to the mourning house, in that same context.
Motaz Azaiza 3:00:16
A while later — his sons were martyred and so on, and at the end of the day it's a duty, condolences for his son. There was salt between me and him. We drank tea together. You know? A young man was martyred and his father is holding a mourning house. I'm going to do my duty as a Palestinian. I've got nothing to do with any faction, no scores with Hamas or Fatah. Whoever it is, to me it's all one.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:00:35
Did that visit, or those relationships, ease the pressure on you — the organised or unorganised pressure from accounts, just at the local level?
Motaz Azaiza 3:00:48
It went up. It went up. Why? Didn't you see how they stared at me when I walked into the mourning house. I walk into the mourning house, nothing for me, nothing against me. Who have I got there? I walk in and suddenly the whole mourning house turns round to look at me. And I'm like, what's with you people. But the Hamas guys who are from Gaza, the ones from Gaza, they know me, they respect me. They come over and greet me one on one.
You know? Even Abu al-Abd's office — when I was at Abu al-Abd's own mourning house, when I went to give condolences after Abu al-Abd was martyred. I went to the mourning house, they came over and sat with me. One on one. I greeted them and his son Abd al-Salam is very fond of me. He respects me a lot and sometimes kisses me. I don't kiss people. He's the one who kisses me sometimes. So they like me, they respect me. So I worked out who's actually working on me — the ones outside, the ones who aren't really — the ones working from outside, or people from Gaza who aren't happy with me or who see things that don't fit their line.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:01:46
Okay, that's clear to me so far. You've explained the photo as something much smaller than how much it was talked about out there and all that. And the human motive, twice. Your need in that immediate moment for recognition from a Palestinian official for something you feel you did — and you got it from the president. And the second thing, you needed help and they did it for you, getting someone dear to your heart, dear to your heart, out of Gaza.
In the context of you going into the Eighth Congress, you became a son of Fatah, you became a leader, in that sense. There's another reading here, boss — that here we're done, we've stopped playing around, we've arrived, we went and got ourselves a different outfit, and that's that. What do you say? It turned against what he wore first.
Motaz Azaiza 3:02:31
Third one, spoilt. Look, that day I was in Spain, I'd been invited by the University of Madrid. But before that were you in the Fatah organisation? No organisation, nothing — look at the shock I got. I'm telling you, Michel Hayek said it — Motaz Azaiza, a hope, brother, despite the shocks. But look at the shock that came. So this happened, and I even used to feel I'm independent, I don't belong to any faction or any organisation. Right? [And suddenly] I'm representing the Fatah movement in Palestine in the best light. I'm used to being attacked by the Fatah kids, by the Hamas kids. But I'm not used to being attacked by Fatah. Which is the people who are mostly like me, from my circle and my environment and so on. So I'm sitting there, nothing for me, nothing against me.
I was in Madrid and out of nowhere my phone rings. "Hello, this is the presidency secretary." Welcome. He said, we were with the president and he put your name in the Fatah congress. Fine. I don't understand what a congress member is, I don't understand what a congress is, I don't understand what a National Council is, or—
Ahmad Biqawi 3:03:41
Sorry, who called you, again? The presidency secretary.
Motaz Azaiza 3:03:44
And Assaf called me, Ahmed Assaf. Mr Ahmed Assaf. So he told me, we were with the president and he put your name in the congress. I told them, I forgot. Fine. Thanks. I mean, ok. What's required of me? He said, nothing. We'll be in touch with you before the congress date. I said fine. That's it. Honestly I said, I don't understand what a congress means and I don't know what happens at a congress.
And at the same time I was sitting on my phone. I was in a really rough, really bad psychological state. Ok. So I'm on TikTok, scrolling. And there's this guy — I'm scrolling TikTok, 16 videos about the Eighth Congress of the Fatah movement. I thought, come on, what's this about? I turned the phone off and my phone rings: they've put your name in Fatah's Eighth Congress. Magic? What's going on? So suddenly, do I say something or not?
I thought, fine, let me speak. However far I've got, however connected I am internationally. I still have to be part of the national scene — the popular scene and the national scene, I have to be part of it, I can't just leave and cut myself off. Like the famous people who say they're Palestinian today, or who actually are Palestinian, but aren't connected to the popular scene on the ground, no presence in Gaza. Just a name abroad, fine, but not in Palestine. And honestly I don't want to be cut off from Palestine. I don't want to be cut off from Gaza. Like, that's it, I went away and left the country, so I'm not in the country. No, I want even—
Ahmad Biqawi 3:05:19
Is that emotional thinking or political, logical thinking? No, emotional.
Motaz Azaiza 3:05:23
More emotional. I don't want to be cut off from the country. I want to stay in the country even if I'm not in it. And I tried to go back to Gaza.
I tried, I tried, and an Israeli captain called Eyal even got in touch with me. Captain Eyal was trying to strike up a friendship with me. And every time he tried to talk I'd tell him, listen, I want to come back. Want what? Why are you on my case? He said, why do you want to come back? Everyone who talks to us wants out. You want to come back? I said, no, I want to come back. He said, why? I said, no reason. I've got a couple of olive trees I forgot to water. I want to go and see to them. What's it to you? I want to go. What business is it of yours? He said, ok, ok, it'll be alright, and hung up, and from that day he stopped calling me.
So I tried to get back to Gaza. I felt, here I am outside, I can get into any place and I can probably get more than that. But even if it's from simple people, from some small part, whatever it is — when you're inside your own country, any kind word of appreciation makes a difference to you, sky-high. And people looked at me — honestly, a lot of them still look at me as their hope, even though it's a huge responsibility and pain and exhaustion and pressure and a terrifying weight on your shoulders, and pressure — I've lived under pressure these last two years, Ahmad, honestly. Honestly, I'm not boasting, I'm not telling you that nobody's been through what I've been through.
But honestly, I carried a responsibility that anyone from the environment I was in, if they'd carried it, they'd either collapse or take the easy road. And I'm not saying about myself that I'm the toughest, that there's nobody like me in the country. No, man, there are people smarter than me and better than me and stronger than me. And there are still people who'll get their chances and be better. But—
Ahmad Biqawi 3:07:00
Ustaz, on that same idea — with everything you've seen, or that I saw happen to you or that you went through, just online. And you keep going, you keep carrying on. Can you tell me about this exhaustion that's there in the first place, or — I want to call it a wound, actually, especially in the contexts you're describing, there's a wound that keeps growing all the time, getting bigger, and there's something you're trying to do, and there's a feeling of helplessness in one place, and a feeling of guilt in another, and even a desire to go back. There's this mixture of feelings there and at the same time you keep going.
Someone like you has the option of being on some far-off island, looking after his mental health, going into programmes, and finding 100 sponsors, 100 backers to do it. But we see the wound is big, and at the same time you keep going.
Motaz Azaiza 3:07:59
Alright, let me share with you what I really feel and what I've felt over these last two years. Right. A killing desire — God, let me not wake up. Right? A desire to die. Actually a desire to die.
Suddenly Motaz, whose ambition was to change the reality of Rafah, is sitting in London. Sitting in New York. Speaking, addressing 2,000 people who came and bought tickets to hear him. Going round the world, picking up a new passport, all that. Everything I dreamed of and everything I never dreamed of opened up for me. But I swear by Almighty God, I never felt for one second that I was happy about anything, or that I enjoyed anything, or that I knew where I was or what I was doing.
I've got a problem — most of the people close to me tell me about it, they say, Motaz, you just don't know your own worth. You don't love yourself. And that's a problem — maybe I never learned to love myself, and I try to love myself, I don't know how. And every time I try to love myself it feels selfish, it feels like I'm profiting, or I'm afraid they'll say I took advantage.
One day my mother came in on me, telling me off, shouting at me, laying into me. Saying, go on, two years have gone by and you — look at all of them, everyone who got famous in Gaza, look at their bank accounts, the ones buying gold and the ones buying buildings and the ones buying flats in Egypt. Where are you? Why, when Abu Mazen brought you in, didn't he give you a flat? And why didn't they give you a villa here? I said to her, mother, why would I take a villa? Who's going to give me a villa? Who? Why? When I did what I did, I didn't do it for a villa or for— I did it for my country and for my work. Another thing, we're fine here, thank God, safe and sound. Nobody's broken a leg, not you, not father, not mother, not one brother, not the other brother.
So that's that.
Even from the very beginning of all the fame, Ahmad, I never chased after anything, not even what was rightfully mine. Even my foundation that I set up. I wouldn't go down to Egypt to work. Because I'm scared, this is donation money, and I'm scared of — scared of the whole donations thing, it's become an obsession with me. Even the car I rent, I pay for it out of my own money, not the foundation's money. Even though I'm the one carrying the whole foundation, I should have a salary, I should get this and that, something for my effort, for the car's petrol — no.
The whole thing became, that's it, I belong to people, to the point that it affected my personal life. My personal life is over, destroyed. I can't even balance things any more, and I went after it late, honestly. I went after it too late; I destroyed my personal life to the point where I can't focus on my personal life, I can't get anything done for myself. To this day I don't have a flat. To this day I don't have a car. Even though in Gaza I had a car. No, never mind. I'm not focused on myself at all.
And at the same time I go abroad and a million people call me, come and speak for Gaza. Okay, do you want to pay me? No, why would we pay you? This is for your country, for Gaza. I went to an event once for the orphans. Okay? Gaza's orphans. They'd brought Khabib, the boxer, the fighter. How much did they pay him? Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to come and speak. At an event for Gaza. And me, from Gaza, it should be — how much? They'll fight you over five thousand dollars, like they can't bear to spend a thing. And they think it's too much on top of that.
So we've got a problem, we don't know our own worth. And we're easy to exploit. Easy to fool. We don't know how to make use of our own hardship ourselves. And honestly, we're hard on each other. Really hard.
I was invited by these Jerusalemites here in America, America, last year or the year before. They were in Jerusalem on 7 October, they heard the sirens and the rockets, they pulled out and left for America, fled. So when I was sitting with them they're saying to me, why did you leave Gaza? I tell them, because I didn't want to die. They say to me, my dear, you left the country and abandoned it, where were you lot? And they say, we were in Jerusalem on 7 October and the sirens and the rockets started and honestly we took the kids and fled, because of their schools and so on.
I said to them, so it's normal for you to get out and travel and flee from a war, but for us it's not normal? Who do you think you are? So my struggle stopped being just Palestinian-Israeli. Honestly.
And I went into a million whirlpools. And then even in Gaza it got to the point where anyone who wanted something from me that I couldn't do for them — and not because I don't care or whatever, I just don't have time or something — suddenly he's on my back attacking me to get attention. It became easy, easy to attack Motaz — attack Motaz, people engage, you say the name in anything and suddenly a post gets a million views.
There's this guy from Gaza, for example, I swear I don't know him. During the war I found him coming to our house because he knew a friend, wanting to stick to us, and sometimes you see a person and you take to them, or you don't, you don't — normal feelings. So I kept away from him, I don't know you. So during the war he wants to get famous or whatever, and suddenly I find him insulting me on Twitter. Why? He wants money from my friend and he wants to pressure me into getting him money from my friend. And he says lies about me and writes stuff.
And the problem is, if you reply to him you give him a platform, you give him value. If you don't reply, he's still lying. And the people with him around you, they don't care, it doesn't end, and I'm the one who gets hurt.
So I've got psychological pressure from what I already lived through, plus pressure from my family, plus pressure from my life, and pressure from the fame, and pressure from people like them. Then he pulled himself out and went to live in Ireland, got what he wanted and got where he was going. Done. He got out. Whether money or fame.
Honestly, look Ahmad, maybe it's not right to say it like this sometimes, or not right to say it at all, I don't know. I don't know what the right thing to say is. But from the start of what happened, from the start of the trouble, I found a responsibility had landed on me and I didn't turn my back on it. I didn't deceive anyone, I didn't lie in anyone's name. Even when I attacked Hamas I didn't say so-and-so did this. No, I was attacking — not attacking, I was talking with logic. I didn't — I didn't twist anything, I didn't lie. I was cursed through my parents, cursed through my family, I was hurt.
A while back I was coming home from America last year, around the same time, and my family was at the airport and I'm hugging them. It had been six months since I'd seen them. And I'd just done a big tour. And stirred everything up here. And some guy — people attacking me, filming me at the airport from a distance. And cursing me while I'm with my family, saying that I like women. You always want to expose people over women — don't expose me in front of my family. Where are you shaming me? So off he went. And he posted it, and it got a million views. Great situation. Anyway, I've seen things.
If anyone tries it on with my family, I'll bury them — that's how it is with me. Right? If I were in my own country, this stuff — it would have burned, their house would have burned, their family would have burned, I'd have driven them out, I'd have wiped the floor with their dignity. Would anyone dare come out with talk like that in my country?
But I'm not, I'm not in my country, I live in Doha, there's law. Fine, go to the law, these people, here you go, one, two, three. The policeman shocked me, he says to me, he's written on the video that you're a Fatah man, a Magian, and I don't know what else. He says to me, is that a football club? So I tell him, no, man, political parties, we disagree. He says to me, right, man. We've written that down. And the officer came and told me, I got his name.
Two weeks later my phone's ringing, all the influencers in Doha are messaging me on Instagram. One tells me, I met the guy's mother, this and that, and she's crying and weeping, and the policeman tells me, his mother wants to talk to you, and I'm not talking to her. Then one day I open the door of the house and there's his family at the door. Elderly people. Begging and so on, and her son will be taken from her and his future will be ruined and his wife has just given birth and this and this and this, and we don't accept this kind of talk, son. I said to him, man, you people, his wife — alright. Why should my family be cursed, for what? For the sake of what? Anyway, the Gazan brain that loves to get even and all that.
I told him, we'll meet at the embassy. Because I know the guy himself hates — whether he hates Fatah or hates— But I wanted to wind him up in my own way. So I made up a paper for him to write an undertaking and this and that. So that I'd drop the complaint, so he wouldn't be jailed and fined and deported. I had him sign it under a picture of Abu Mazen and a picture of Abu Ammar. We love spite, it's in our blood. Brotherhood, as Sinwar put it.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:16:55
So it wasn't out of love for Abu Mazen and Abu Ammar that you had it done under them — you went to the embassy out of spite, you used the pictures—
Motaz Azaiza 3:17:04
Spite. And regardless, my position is my own, nobody has anything on me in my view, and I—
Ahmad Biqawi 3:17:08
That's unbelievable, man, unbelievable, somebody taking somebody to the embassy just out of spite against a human being, man, what is that?
Motaz Azaiza 3:17:14
Of course — but me, me too, where's the problem? You reach a point, you know—
Ahmad Biqawi 3:17:19
No, leaving him in jail would have been better. You get me? I mean—
Motaz Azaiza 3:17:22
We're not — Ahmad, one day when an old woman, a mother, comes to you—
Ahmad Biqawi 3:17:27
No, no, I get it.
Motaz Azaiza 3:17:27
Would you accept that for yourself? Nobody accepts that. We don't accept that kind of thing for ourselves. And he brought his family to that over some stupid thing he did. That's it. And he took it and disappeared. You know? But the problem is, the harm left harm behind. It left harm.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:17:39
Listen, this phase, really, it's not just about you being in Gaza and him being in Gaza and so on. There's a phase, really — part of it is maybe the campaigns that are going on, that people no longer have any restraint. Whether it's social control or family control or self-control or values — a big part of it has come apart across Palestine generally, across Palestinian action and Palestinian activism. So you find people who before, before this war, or before before '36, would have hesitated over a certain kind of insult or a certain kind of labelling. Today you feel people are much more comfortable with this kind of behaviour.
Motaz Azaiza 3:18:14
True. But there's upbringing, there's upbringing, there's upbringing. What? Upbringing is supposed to be what governs it, not every man in his own house.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:18:22
Honestly I don't know. But I really do think there's something — we need time. But there were big shocks people went through, that our societies went through, and they threw up a lot of things we're going to face more and more.
I want to ask you about the people who today avoid appearing with you. What I know is — I asked around more about this point after we talked. There are friends of yours who avoid being photographed with you, or avoid photos getting out of you being in places where they are, or whatever. And there's contact that happens with individuals around you if they show up in a photo or something. How much is this thing — again, is there real harm here, and how big is it, actually?
Motaz Azaiza 3:19:18
It's very big. You know? I've been through things that even the people closest to me, who are with me, couldn't take in that I was going through, and they don't know how big it is. Because, like I said, I always try to carry things on my own and try not to put a load on the people around me. So where's the problem? Here's one of the situations I went through.
One day there was someone from Gaza, a girl, who was cursing me. Okay? And this girl is related to a journalist who was with me in my house during the war and we worked together. Okay? So that day I messaged her, what is this girl doing? Why is she talking like that? She said, everyone — you're a public figure, you have to put up with it. I said to her, fine, ma'am, fine. At the same time, one day activists on Facebook started attacking this journalist, saying every dirty thing about her. And she was complaining and losing it, how can they talk about me like this. So I went and stepped in. I told them, listen, nobody goes near her. This and that. And nobody kept on attacking her.
Like, one day, for instance. I don't know if I should even be mentioning this, but for example Tamer al-Mishal's family are very close to us, or our relationship with them and with my family is really good. His wife is a wonderful person, and his son — mashallah, his son. So one day people were criticising him, and they brought out a photo of his son on Twitter and started going at him, bullying him. The same method Hamas uses on us, obviously. And I'm watching this from a distance, and it's got nothing to do with me. But to be honest, I went and messaged him, I even messaged their accounts. I mean I know they're loving it, but I went and messaged them, please delete this, this is shameful. What are you doing? The boy is a child, what is this stupidity? Deleted.
So where's the story in that? It's happened to me more than once. When I get attacked, I find relatives or friends messaging me, laughing. Yeah, yeah, look, Motaz, they're saying this and this and this about you. But they don't know how I feel. I mean it doesn't matter to them, they just think it's funny, and there's no way — no way they'd ever write one word defending me. He'd have to get into a slanging match. His own opinion is fiercer than mine. His opinion is fiercer, he just hasn't got the guts to say it.
I've got the guts to say my opinion in front of whoever it is. I swear to God, whoever it is. I'm not scared to say my opinion, I'm not scared. If I'm telling you — I'm not the best person in the world, I'm not, I swear, the most religious person. I sin, I repent, I sin, I repent. But there's an opinion of mine and a right that there's no way I'd back down from. No way I'd let it go.
Right? So these people want the grapes without facing the watchman. You know? They only want the useful thing, or whatever they can get out of you. So I've got — I know a lot of people in Gaza. I'm telling you, Gaza, I know so many people there. They see me and take photos with me and love me and all that, Motaz, but there's no way they'd say one word standing up for you. No way they'd show it in front of people. Like, I've got my own life, fine. You've hurt me, man — the country today, the country's finished. This isn't the time for us to be splitting apart. It's got nothing to do with me — getting attacked, them bringing up my mother, my father, whatever. I don't want anyone getting attacked.
So even for me, one of the last shocks I went through was from people close to me, in a crazy way. It happened — we fell out. Because I was always complaining to him about the attacks on me and all that and the psychological exhaustion. I was always pouring it all out to him. So when we fell out, he says to me, you brought it on yourself. Who told you to do that? You should have kept your mouth shut. So I'm like, honestly — even though when you lot talk, you're fiercer than me and you say it more violently than me. But you haven't got the guts to say it to the world, or in public. It doesn't matter to them. What matters is that we're fine. So I paid a really big price. And there was a period when I regretted it, I said I wish I'd never done it.
And also when Fatah's Eighth Congress happened, suddenly I found the people who'd been defending me against Hamas attacking me. Annoyed about who they picked at Fatah's Eighth Congress. Whatever it was — why did he get the position? Who took it? Why didn't you take so-and-so? And they compare me with people. So I — and I get things wrong, and they started belittling me and doing all that and swearing. The same — the same environment as Hamas. You're no different from them. So I was upset. And honestly, the hurt from them is still with me today. And honestly it made me take a step back, that — that they're all liars. Honestly, I mean honestly, I'm upset to a really big degree.
And what upsets me more is — I mean, I got out, imagine, I was at a ceremony, the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. Right? Sitting there — imagine, Motaz has grown up and come out through the Rafah crossing and he's sitting at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. I'm sitting there and people from Gaza are killing me, wanting me to fix their problems, or people who want help, and I'm holding my phone — the Norwegian prince or whatever his name is, is sitting there talking, and I'm holding my phone trying to send money to Bank of Palestine, transferring this, calling so-and-so. Right? And even when I was nominated for the Nobel, I mean what does the Nobel Peace Prize mean? It wasn't like they stood with me, like this is our son, we're proud of him and all that, he got to the Nobel Peace Prize. No, they started measuring themselves against me.
I mean, the day it all kicked off in the country, I didn't sit at home with my family, I sat in the street like — excuse me — like, I'm not putting myself down, and I'm in America, they love dogs, it's normal, they love them and love on them. But I was genuinely running around like a street dog, filming and carrying a really big thing. And I'm telling you, I swear to God, my aim was never money, never fame, never anything. And it kept me going, kept me at it, because I was genuinely there for people. To the point that my family started saying, that's enough. I'm telling you, enough. Give yourself your due, give yourself something. But you don't even find a space to talk in. And we tell ourselves it's with God, the reckoning is with God. To the point that people started treating me like I owe them.
Like, a while back I was helping someone who — someone who was in my class once, through the foundation. Motaz has grown up and come out through the Rafah crossing and set up a foundation. Imagine, the one who — the one who took the slap from the Authority and got singled out. So I helped him two, three times, but that's it, I'm not — I'm not living with millions, where am I supposed to get the money? That's it, it's a lot. And restrictions from the bank and all that. Then one day I opened Facebook and suddenly, I was — I found insults. Insults, insults, filthy insults. Aimed at me. As if — as if I owe them, you know? So I — I never enjoyed the fame, I never enjoyed anything about it.
And then two and a half years of worry and misery and grief and destr— I mean my personal life really was destroyed. Genuinely, genuinely destroyed, tragically. And the pressure I was living under made me do things that aren't normal and aren't me. And — and I didn't consult anyone, maybe, I was always scared that someone wanted to — I feel like everyone wants to hurt me, so I started staying away from any problems and doing things inside my own head.
So even the people who used to defend me back then, when the war developed, it developed, I mean people changed, the mood changed, even when they put me in the Fatah conference, he doesn't deserve it. But if I don't deserve it, who does? No, regardless, thank God, I mean I get invited to a lot of things, honestly, places Palestinians have never gone to, no Palestinian has ever set foot in. So I'm not waiting, honestly, for a conference or whatever, I'm waiting for appreciation, like, thank you for thinking of me.
But when I find that the people I genuinely stand with only like me because they want something out of me — I mean they don't want good for you, it's: you give us good, talk about our cause, uh, talk about us and bring us donations and all that and help people, but if some good comes and you keep it for yourself, no, you're an exploiter, you climbed up on the backs of the martyrs.
Even though the martyrs were asleep in their houses and I was in the street — with all my respect for the martyr and his standing. I mean, there are a lot of martyrs who were in their homes asleep during the war, I was in the street, I was the one taking the bigger risk. It's just luck that I didn't die.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:28:18
Motaz, thank you so much, I'm grateful to you for this conversation. At Taqarub, after all the questions, we give a space, because there might be a question we missed, or, uh, you or our guests might want to say something, confirm something, deny something, say something — you know, these are long historical testimonies. So this is your space, with no question, uh, for us to close the conversation with. Go ahead.
Motaz Azaiza 3:28:44
Ask me a question and I'll answer it. I don't know what to say.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:28:47
No, no, there isn't — there's no question, this is your space. Is there something you want, something I didn't ask you about? Something — you were saying you'd really like there to be a Palestinian space where you can say everything. So did we miss anything? Did we talk about everything? Is there something you still want to stress, to say, to deny — something new, something old, a new person, an old person?
Motaz Azaiza 3:29:09
No, there isn't anything, there isn't anything at all, that's it. I want to become a monk. Uh, not the friend — but most of our generation, most of us, we carry a responsibility that isn't ours and a load that isn't ours, and we keep trying, and we're very hard on ourselves. And unfortunately our value got tied to what we produce, so if we stop producing or make a mistake or whatever, you feel like you're only the hero as long as you've got value, and that's a bad thing. Uh, I just hope we make peace with ourselves, and I hope things get better, and I hope all the effort we made gets crowned with at least getting our right across and getting the truth across to the world so they understand.
We're not going to stop, and I'm not going to stop, someone else will come, whoever comes after me, and whatever's in us, I swear, whatever's in us and whatever faults we've got and however much we stumble and all that, there's good in us, there's good in us, and Palestine will stay alive, and God willing one day we'll stop saying Gaza and West Bank and all that, that's it, it's one country, and leave us alone.
That's it, uh, and it was a big ambition of mine — look, look, you talk about Palestine, but I've never been to Palestine, only Gaza, that's all I know of Palestine. I genuinely wanted to, I applied for a permit in August 2023, they refused me. Yeah, and—
Ahmad Biqawi 3:30:37
I've been all over Palestine.
Motaz Azaiza 3:30:39
Have you been to Gaza? Really. That's Palestinians for you. I swear I tried, I tried, but it didn't work out. And when I — when we got up and left and all that, I got hit with a ban too, God knows where from. God willing one day it'll get sorted. I mean, imagine if I said I'd gone to the West Bank, got a permit — would I turn out to be a spy as well? No, you wouldn't, why— I mean I wouldn't turn out—
Ahmad Biqawi 3:31:09
There's something else, there's, there's something else I want to say to you, honestly. Uh, I don't know, but I think the negative comments or the negative audience that exists on social media — the algorithm supports it, along with actual human beings, there's something that pulls with something, and it's genuinely hard for a human being to sit there and think about, say, saying about so-and-so, you know what, he's good. I mean, nobody gets praised in the first place. I mean if you go back, today we're in an era where even the martyrs get scorned and sworn at.
Motaz Azaiza 3:31:44
Yeah.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:31:45
I mean there's something — when I was telling you something changed in these three years, that there's a lack of basic decency. I mean, I was aware from the Second Intifada onwards, and people would be swearing at the life of such-and-such leader morning and night. Like, take the story of Yasser Arafat, Abu Ammar. Right? All of our people, the ones who opposed him, genuinely opposed him up and down. When he went, straight away it became God rest his soul and he was martyred and God have mercy on him, and they closed his file. That's how, that's how we know it — the moment a martyr is martyred, his file gets closed. So for me, part of the shocks I deal with, on a social level, is how big — how big this shock is.
And from another angle too, Motaz, how much social breakdown there is. I mean, you see someone who comes out like that from — from his house and swears at a girl. Right? Or uses a video of a girl playing sport and then goes on with his day like it's nothing. And the video goes viral, and you start looking at it — well, does he not have a family, does he not have relatives, does he not have anyone, does this girl not have anyone, so they could knock heads together? Or there's, there's a kind of social disintegration that we need time to work out.
But what I was honestly telling you is that when a person is in that state, his eye starts seeing only the negative thing. More than — more than anything else, and it's not the discussion of the four million who left, so much as how many people are actually still there and see the thing, and how much impact there is as well.
I mean, I think about the foundation you've set up, I have a lot of respect for organising any work, institutionalising it, because there's something that lasts, that carries on after it. So for me, there are children and young people today that you stand with, and in 10 years, 15 years you might run into them and you don't know anything about them, and you see an impact that carried on. So this is a long path and you're trying everything, so I don't know, and this is what I wanted to say at the end of the conversation, so if you want to go back to your space, you're free to, but I intruded on it.
Motaz Azaiza 3:33:45
No, no, honestly, look, thank you, Ahmad, I'm really glad to be hosted here, and the subject, it covered, like, it's like the Katiba square in Gaza. On 1 January it's all Fatah, on 27 December it's all Hamas green, one day it's however much Islamic Jihad, one day the PFLP, one day the Freedom Movement, where only three people turn up, you know? And it's the same people.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:34:09
They must be exhausted because—
Motaz Azaiza 3:34:11
Yeah, that's it, we just watch, we're a people that loves a gathering, you know? So it's just, it's just that the picture isn't always the way people see it, and there's a lot of injustice happening in Gaza and that happened before, and like people want — for example, if you support Hamas, fine, but you have to carry the cost of Hamas, if you support Fatah you have to carry the cost of Fatah.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:34:37
Right? So if you want to oppose them, you have to carry that too.
Motaz Azaiza 3:34:41
Of course.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:34:41
I mean that's how it is, you want, you want to walk the opposite path, you have to carry it.
Motaz Azaiza 3:34:44
I mean, to this day, with all respect, I'm sorry, use this or don't, I honestly don't have a problem, but for example, to this day you hear the name Nizar Banat, right? To this day. Okay, so how many people were killed in Gaza by Hamas? And why don't we hear their names in the West Bank? Even from Fatah, even from Fatah their memory doesn't get honoured. They're guys who were Fatah, say — the ones who were thrown off the rooftops, and the ones who got shot in the legs, and the ones who were burned, and the ones who killed themselves, and the ones who were killed unjustly. Genuinely, why? Why don't we hear their names in the West Bank, for instance?
Ahmad Biqawi 3:35:23
Because there's something different there, I mean that one had two sides who set off conflicts with each other and sniped each other and stormed each other and all that. And there's a phase that's like a black phase in a history we don't even take part in, so they try all the time to work on escaping it or closing it or getting out of it.
Motaz Azaiza 3:35:41
I mean, a young guy like Adi al-Rabi'i — Adi al-Rabi'i was killed, killed by Hamas just for an opinion on Facebook, I swear to God, just that. Yeah, Ziad Abu Lahya, or Abu Hayya, was shot in the head for saying "God damn Hamas" or "save us from Hamas", whatever. My point isn't — I'm not leaving the occupation aside and focusing on Hamas, but if I've got a wound in my palm, don't I have to treat it so I can fight, so I can fight properly? So it doesn't work for me to take the good and the bad and throw them together — I mean everyone shoves us onto one side.
Like, for example, I'm speaking from my side, from what I lived, I'm not saying it because, God, the Authority is better, or that Fatah is better, I don't say that. Like, for example, today there's also — this is something that needs to get through: today, when people come and accuse Hamas of committing massacres on 7 October, what do they tell you? Those people who went in, that wasn't us. But when we say there's something heroic in it, they tell you we're the ones who did it.
So each of them plays with us like — what do they call that jelly stuff, what's it called? Slime, slime. I swear to God, slime. I swear, we're a slime people. Everyone shapes us however they like, whatever mood they're in. But, my friend, and thank you for having me, and I hope — you know, ready for the attacks?
Ahmad Biqawi 3:37:01
Me? No, I'm honestly not expecting the attacks.
Motaz Azaiza 3:37:04
Just so I can tell you what kind of host you are.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:37:06
There are people, there are people who've got — for me, honestly, there isn't one Palestinian narrative today, it's the narrative of all of us made of narratives, I mean the Palestinian narrative is all of our narratives of what we saw, and every person sees the thing from their own angle. But for me, for long stretches I used to think that you look for the narrative with one person or one body, and after a while I saw, especially in these three years, that it's not right that even the closest bodies or the people directly concerned are keen to put forward their narrative and confine it to that, and we have to hear everyone's narratives so we can form our narrative together. Thank you, but I'm curious to know, now when you finish, or tomorrow morning when they ask you how the conversation at Taqarub was, before it's published, what are you going to tell them? How was it?
Motaz Azaiza 3:37:50
Honestly, intense. I mean, Ahmad's a good guy, but honestly I've forgotten what I said. Just so you know.
But I'll be grateful for this, God willing, and God willing it stays for history, and God willing — this is my personal experience, whoever feels it fits them can wear it, whoever doesn't feel it fits them, I'm not forcing it on anyone, so I'm speaking from the point of view of one person out of 2.3 million, I'm not imposing myself on anyone, and I'm telling you, honestly, all of Gaza is yours. Whoever sees that my words represent him, welcome, I'm honoured by him. Whoever sees that my words don't represent him, and objects to them and says you don't suit me — fair enough, mate, peace be upon you. That's fine. That's it.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:38:32
Motaz, thank you so much.
Motaz Azaiza 3:38:34
My dear.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:38:34
Thank you very much. I'm grateful to you.
Motaz Azaiza 3:38:36
God keep you.
Ahmad Biqawi 3:38:37
My regards.
Motaz Azaiza 3:38:38
My dear, take care.