Trapped in the enclave, Palestinians on the social media platform are documenting and sharing their harrowing experiences of life under Israeli airstrikes and a ground invasion.
The war in Gaza is unfolding on your cellphone.
It’s being captured and narrated by Palestinians, trapped in the besieged enclave with cellphones, a command of English and large Instagram followings.
While Israel and Egypt are preventing most journalists from entering Gaza, these Palestinians are documenting the devastation of Israel’s airstrikes and ground invasion in stories and reels. Their posts are intimate and raw — capturing images that mainstream media might consider too graphic to run.
They live the war they’re covering: surviving bombardments, rationing food and water, and sheltering in hospitals.
They are not neutral observers, and in their impassioned posts, they don’t purport to be. Some even accuse them of being propagandists for Hamas, which runs Gaza.
In response to Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, Israel began an intense bombing campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 10,500 people, including over 4,300 children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. U.N. experts have declared that “the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide.”
At least 33 Palestinian media workers have been killed inside Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Yet Palestinians in Gaza keep documenting the brutal war, attracting millions of followers around the world.
Here are three of them.
MOTAZ AZAIZA
@motaz_azaiza
It was 4 a.m. when Motaz Azaiza fell asleep on Oct. 7.
The 24-year-old had been up late editing a video for a U.N. agency where he worked as a part-time producer, and watching “Friends” reruns.
Two hours later, he awoke to the sound of explosions and ran to his roof to see a barrage of rockets above him. There had been no warning, no exchange of fire that typically signaled a full-blown war. But one had started while he was asleep.
Hamas-led fighters had breached the barriers dividing Gaza from Israel, attacking soldiers and residents of nearby communities. Israeli officials said about 240 people were taken captive and around 1,400 people, mainly civilians but some soldiers, were killed in Israel.
In response, Israel launched a full-scale war against Hamas, trapping Mr. Azaiza and two million others under bombardment in Gaza, a tinderbox after decades of conflict.
Mr. Azaiza, who had already lived through four wars, grabbed his camera, and stepped out into an unraveling world.
Armed Palestinian men whizzed by in an Israeli military Jeep with three captives, two of them in uniform, and paraded them before residents, he said. Mr. Azaiza remembers the fear in one of the captive’s eyes.
HIND KHOUDARY
@hindkhoudary
NOOR HARAZEEN
@noor.harazeen