what impact have his pictures had on him, and on us? motaz azaiza, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. it is a pleasure to have you. take me back some years. the young motaz decided to take up the camera to start taking pictures in gaza. what was your motivation back then? my motivation was because

i don't want to be a useless person. i was in high school and ifound my passion in photography... ..because my father used to have, like, a camera and i have a big album for me when i was young and i started taking pictures, capture everything. you say capture everything. what interests me is that for many years, while there was conflict in gaza — there were various israeli incursions, hamas were operating in gaza, there was conflict, there was death, there was bloodshed — your focus for a very long time was onjoyful subjects. life. on beauty, on life and love. because i'm someone like, i hate wars, i hate the bombing, i hate the occupation, i hate everything. and because of the picture for gaza now, for the people outside, they think gaza is all about war and they think there is no life there. so i was the one who wanted to create and to make, to create and to make this picture clear for people.

so i was taking pictures for life, forjoy, for the daily life of gazans. wars and aggressions were always dragging me to their site because whenever there is a bombing happened, i found myself taking my camera and go out so i can document and take pictures. i've been doing this years ago. which brings us to october 7, 2023. how did you respond when you heard what hamas had done, the murderous attack on southern israel, what were your feelings? what was your response? uh, actually, as palestinians, as a palestinian in gaza, we were shocked more than the israeli that that happened because we were expecting a war to happen in gaza, but we didn't expect it in that way. but when you heard of the scale of the attack and the numbers killed, and of course it went beyond 1,000 people killed, did you have a sense

of impending doom that this was going to mean something so dark, so terrible...? yeah, i told my friends and family, that it's going to be bad. because i know my enemy. i know how israel... israel, without even giving them a chance to justify their deeds towards palestinians, their killing to palestinians, they kill a lot of people without even expecting anyone from the international community to judge them. so now we are giving them, like, a big reason so they can kill more palestinians. so i was caring more about the life of palestinians and the...our lives and how the life will go now. were you caring about the lives of the israelis who were murdered? 0h, like, i care about, like... icondemn, like, killing civilians and innocent people if that happens, but, in the end, if they themselves don't care about my life as a palestinian, why should icare? because the problem is with

this world that they start to care about gaza, and they start to hear about gaza from the 7th of october, which is really wrong, because the same things what happened there was happening for palestinians before, since a long time before. and we didn't find any response from the world for that, because they see that the israeli's life matters more than the palestinian, which it does not. i want to focus on the hours and the days after october 7th. you took a very clear decision to take your camera out onto the street... like any aggression before, because the bombing started from, like, let's say, 10am in the morning in that day. and ijust woke up at 6:30, so, like, everything happening, we didn't. .. we didn't know what's happening in the first moments but then the videos and the images start to show up. i was, like, on the roof of my house. i didn't know what is happening.

a lot of rockets launch. well, we can we can actually show an image, because it's very useful to see just how you were so very involved from the very beginning in what was happening. yeah. that is an israeli strike on what they claimed was a hamas command centre, obviously a high—rise building. ah, no, it was a residential tower. it got bombed four times before that, before this, this bombing, actually. it was full with people, but then they evacuated before the bombing. i want now to share a second image that you took that certainly went viral around the world. it is, it's an image that is difficult to look at. it's extreme suffering. yeah. it's a young woman, a girl, i guess. a girl. she's, like, 17 years old. yeah. and obviously, she was buried under rubble after an israeli military... the camera helped to find her because there was no light, and i used the low shutter speed so i can find her.

you mean when you began filming, you literally had no idea she was there? yeah, she was screaming and we were hearing, but there was no, like, there are small holes, but no—one�*s seeing, so, use my camera, flip the screen. we found her there, and humanitarian workers start to dig so they can get her. and she's now in tunisia. she had, like, 67 surgeries in her legs. that, i mean, that's extraordinary. it's a picture which makes you believe that probably that human being could not survive what she was going through. but she did survive. yeah, yeah. she survived. but for sure, she's still suffering. and she lost her family. what i want to get to is what you go through as a photographer, but also as a gazan, when you come across scenes like that and you get your camera out, and i believe that rescue operation to get her out of there took many hours and she was desperate for water. nine hours. how do you decide how to behave, how much to use the camera, and how,

as a human being, as a gazan, to get involved and help? because before i've been a photographer, i was a humanitarian. i'm a member at the national disaster response team with the prcs, palestine red crescent, so i have some trainings, i have some experience. so because i also care about humans, the humans, before i get the picture, a lot of times i missed a lot of pictures because i want to save this human, because i see that he's injured, i can see him injured, he needs me to help him more than taking a picture for him. so sometimes i lose myself. i don't know what i'm acting. iact, like, crazy. i start to scream, to shout around the people. i want to do something but because i have my equipments, sometimes i don't have, like, the first aid so i can use it to help the injured people. but i used also my car to take injured people to the hospital rather than just parking your

car, take the pictures. do you feel internally conflicted when you're faced with this sort of thing? yeah, yeah. because you see, like, thousands of people are getting killed, and you want to save lives more than taking pictures. but at the same time, the world should see, and even, like... it's really difficult, because you take a picture to show the world, the world does nothing. you save this life, take it to the hospital, there is no place for him to be in the hospital. you put him on the floor, and then after two or three days, or the same day, he passed. so you are losing in there. you've had a little time to reflect now because you've been out of gaza for some time, but how complicated were your feelings? yeah, i didn't give myself the opportunity to really grieve or to startjust crying about the people i lost, because one day i was covering what is happening, and i heard the news about my friend's house got bombed. i went there, ifound my friend, he's half body under the rubble.

he passed. they are twins. and, i spent hours getting him out from the rubble. i put my camera aside, and afterjust five hours, i received the news of my family's house got bombed in my own town. i believe that's in deir al—balah. deir al—balah, yeah, which is now, like, containing more than 1.5 million people in deir al—balah, which is a small town, and also already, like, israel invaded the eastern part of deir al—balah. so... so you went along, with your camera, to your own family's house? was it your aunt? yeah, my aunt's house, yeah. and you had to take... well, you didn't have to, but, the decision was to take pictures... ididn�*t take... ..pictures for them because they all were flesh. we didn't find any complete body for them, because their house is very small, and the bomb that israel threw on them was very big. so, no—one survived, and they're all literally flesh.

and till now, we didn't find any body for my aunt. we don't know where she disappeared. so, yeah. so i didn't have the time to grieve or show any emotions. and i start...i continued what i'm doing, because when you lose that much of people in a short time, your heart becomes dead. dead heart. dead? yeah, it's very dead, because now there is a different thoughts now in my mind that i should... ..accept it, in a way, to another. you were putting pictures on your social media feeds. they were going around the world. you ended up with, i think, something like 17, 18 million followers on instagram. they were having an enormous impact in one way in that people were looking at them, but were they having the impact that you wanted them to have? i was hoping for a change. i was hoping that the world, when they see these images,

especially that, ok, the followers are like 18 million followers, but the reach is billions. i reach one day, like, a billion views on my content or my account. so, yeah, i made something, but in the end, it changed nothing because i start to believe that no—one is stronger than israel, and israel has no respect for anyone, and no—one can do anything for israel, because even the icc, when they are like... ..knows that benjamin netanyahu, the prime minister of israel, he's, like, a war criminal and he should be arrested, the us will stand up and say, "no." so... so, yeah. you were bearing witness, but, to a certain extent, you were also becoming an advocate. you were using words like genocide. yes. you put on some of your social media feeds pictures which to israelis were utterly outrageous and unacceptable.

that is, side by side images of netanyahu and his cabinet and hitler and his associates. yeah. you knew what you were doing with those images. yeah. you crossed a line. you know, bearing witness is so important. but then you were messaging in a way that turned off a lot of people. do you, on reflection, think you mixed up two different messages? yeah... maybe. but the people should understand that i'm dealing with this as a human, a normal human like them. and no—one told me that you will wake up and you will start to face heavy airstrikes, and you lose a lot of friends and family, or being, like, in a genocide, thousands of people lose their life and you will act normal, or you should be prepared for this, because nobody will be prepared, especially what's happening to my own people.

so whatever i do, it's justified. no—one told me that i will face a genocide and i will be, like, be that being famous, or the whole world will see me, because i'm not prepared for this. that word, of course, is now subject to an international court ofjustice case brought by south africa. yeah. you use it. the israelis say it's entirely unacceptable and they reject it entirely. why? we may wait years for the icj to make theirjudgment. i'm not waiting for anyone. i need action for now, because i'm not counting on the international community any more. i'm counting on the people, because i want to stop the killing of my people in any way. it's... it's not fair. you've spoken very powerfully about your experiences in gaza, but we began this conversation, early on, we talked about looking reality in the face, not turning away.

one of the realities is what happened on october 7. yeah. and ijust wonder, on yourfeed, at no point, i think, have you used pictures of the murdered israeli civilians from october 7. but just as you don't want the world to turn away from your pictures, should the world also look in the eye those images that came from israel on october 7? and shouldn't you look at those images, too? yeah, but i wasn't there. all what i posted from gaza was me capturing, because i trust myself. people, millions trusted me because i was there and these images come through me. i wasn't there, so... how should i post about something like this? i wasn't there, i don't know what exactly happened. and at the same time, when you say, like, "the world should look also for. 0k, yeah. in the end, humans. but when an israeli officer go

to the world and say that they are human animals, that palestinians are human animals, and you expect me to deal with him as a human? no, i'm not going to deal with him as a human. if he's not seeing me as a human, why should i? why the hell should i see him as a human? because he's not seeing me as a human. he doesn't want to see the palestinians as humans, because until now, at least, the two—state solution, we didn't have it because israel is not accepting it. they don't want it because... well, of course, hamas is not accepting it either. let me just talk a little bit, if i may, let me just talk a little bit about the reality of being a photojournalist in gaza. of course, international journalists are not allowed into gaza. israel doesn't let them in. why? well, i'll tell you why they say. they say it's for operational security reasons and also for the security of those journalists. security of journalists. .. but the bottom line is, they're not allowed in. people from the bbc are not allowed in. we, for images, for accounts on the ground, rely upon palestinian journalists.

yeah. i want to know whether you feel that palestinian journalists can operate freely and independently, given the constraints of war, but can they operate freely, independently in gaza and let's say the west bank, too? is it possible? yeah. possible. idid it. human rights watch, for many years, has said it's not possible. there are enormous repressive pressures coming from hamas and indeed the palestinian authority in the west bank on journalists. i did it in gaza, and ifilmed one person who's, like, cursing israel and hamas at the same time. no—one did anything from me. so, i'm not here to defend anyone, 0k? but i'm telling you that there is a lot of propaganda against us as palestinians and like, accept it or not, why 7 october happened? why? truly, it was like a reaction for the besieged gaza strip. if you keep putting pressure on it, on hamas, and you are seeing what hamas have been doing, even preparing

themselves for it. you wrote something very interesting after you left gaza. you said on social media this, and some people took it as an oblique, a sort of cryptic reference to hamas. you said, "if the death and hunger of their people..." that is, the people in gaza. "..do not make any difference to them..." i mean, you didn't name them, but, "to them", then you said, "..they don't need to make any difference to us. "cursed be everyone who has trafficked in our blood, "burned our hearts and homes, and ruined our lives." some took that as a reference, actually, notjust to the israelis... yeah, yeah. ..but to hamas. it's not only hamas. and you know why i wrote this? i didn't say even a word why i did write this. this was in ramadan. and a friend of mine, he's very close friend to me, he was sending me messages, and my number's with the whole world now, so i received thousands of messages. so he was sending me, he asking me to help him for money and to get

him out from gaza. he was waiting for the united nations truck for the flour to his family. an israeli sniper killed him in his chest. his name's mohammed arifi. i lost control as a human for losing this close friend to me and i wrote this because everyone is responsible. everyone. israel is the first responsible, because it's a part of occupation, so he's responsible on us. and every palestinian leader is responsible for our lives. because now, i see, like, palestinian leadership is now trying to find a solution for the palestinian division between themselves, like fatah, hamas... so why the hell you didn't do that before this happened? i'm also...|�*m speaking as one of the people of gaza, i'm not here just to defend someone and attack someone. no, everyone is responsible for the lives of palestinians. first israel, as a power of occupation, because they are

the main reason for all of this. and second, palestinian leadership, because you are the reason also for it. you are a reason. don't tell me that you are not a reason for this. you were like... you accepted the situation of palestinians in gaza. before 7 october, did you know what was happening in gaza? a lot of young people were trying to kill themselves for the lack of opportunities and the poverty. you are not able to travel. not able to start a life. me, myself, sometimes i was thinking about it, because... you mean, deep, deep depression? yeah! deep mental health problems. yeah, because... it wasn't a life. so let me bring it back to the personal, if i may. yeah. you did get out of gaza, unlike so manyjournalists who have been killed in gaza. and a lot ofjournalists also get back, get out from gaza. yeah. and you've had now months based in doha, and you've been able to travel to some extent around the world with your message and your experience. yeah. how is your mental health now?

because having been through what can only be described as extreme trauma, along with everybody else in gaza, now you're outside of it. how do you cope with that? i don't know. sometimes i feel like i... ..i don't know how to cope with it. and sometimes i feel like i lost a lot of things from inside. sometimes i cry with my own. sometimes i feel like i lost my emotions. now, like, when i hear someone got killed, "0k, "what do you do?" because, like, i lost my life, like everyone else in gaza. and i lost my family. so i'm now, like, as a new life. i'm just, like, sorry. what i'm doing, sometimes i feel like it's useless, because i... people are trying to personalise what i'm doing. they wantjust to support me.

it's not about me. it's about, like...the people are why i went out from gaza. because the people want to do something. ifound myself, like, having a power. i didn't ask for it. i didn't ask anyone to follow me. and ifound myself having a power of people. so, ok, i went out. i'll keep making noise so people can move to something. i went to a protest. i went to interviews. i went to a place that never a palestinian has been there. but people start to personalise it. 0k, as much as it's supportive, but it's not me. i want you to just keep talking about what's happening. you are 25 years old, but as i'm talking to you, in a funny sort of way... you feel like old? yeah, you feel much older. this is the made of gaza. because, when you are in a conflict area under occupation, everything is with a struggle. for people of your generation, in their 20s or even younger, the young people of gaza, can they emerge from this with hope?

a belief in a future? no. this time, no. in the previous times? yes. this time, no. because every house in gaza lost at least one. at least. a lot of families disappeared. a lot of people still under the rubble. and if you want to get out from gaza — because believe me, if the rafah crossing is still working, a lot of gazans will leave — even when they leave, after they pay everything they have, where should they go? i mean, they talk about, you know, there is no ceasefire, but maybe there will be a ceasefire one day. there will be. they talk about rebuilding gaza. are you telling me that, in many ways, you feel the people of gaza cannot be rebuilt? yeah. what's the need of rebuilding gaza and the problem still exists? if i'm still under occupation?

and to have my free country... look, this will never end. this will never end. we're never, like, under occupation and everything is restricted — this will never end. and no—one will have safety and no—one will have peace. i don't have peace as a palestinian. motaz, we have to end there. that's fine. motaz azaiza, i thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you so much for having me. thank you. thank you very much. thank you.

hello there. wiggonholt in west sussex was the country's hot spot on sunday, with temperatures hitting 30 degrees celsius, making it the hottest day of september so far. not that we're very far into the month, of course. there was plenty of sunshine for east anglia and south east england, but rather cloudy skies for some, turned quite murky here in mousehole in cornwall. we've also seen showers and thunderstorms break out. this clump of storms that went through the north—west midlands earlier brought 14mm of rain in just the space of one hour, and over the next few hours, those heavy downpours will continue to drive northwards across northern england and into scotland as well. probably another batch of heavy rain then developing behind that into parts of wales. all the while it will stay quite warm and muggy. well, that takes us into monday, and monday is dominated by low pressure.

we're expecting showers or some longer spells of rain. the heaviest downpours will be across northern england and scotland. probably some thunderstorms mixed in, so there could be some localised surface water flooding. bit of rain crosses northern ireland, brighter from western counties later in the afternoon. probably quite murky around some of our irish sea coasts. maybe staying dry across east anglia and south east england, where it will continue to feel quite humid and very warm. now beyond that, as we head into tuesday, eventually we're going to start to get northwesterly winds moving back across the country, and they will bring fresher air and some slightly lower temperatures as well. now, tuesday will probably start off with some bits and pieces of rain, probably murky weatherfor some across eastern areas to clear out of the way. then some sunshine. a few showers followed to scotland, northern ireland and maybe one or two for the northwest of both england and wales. temperatures 18 to 21. feeling fresher, pleasant in the sunshine. from wednesday onwards, though, there's a lot of uncertainty in the weather forecast. two scenarios —

one is that we continue to see showers work into north—western areas, with the driest weather across the south and east of the uk, where we've got a ridge of high pressure. in this scenario wednesday, thursday, friday, temperatures wouldn't change very much. high teens to low 20s. a pleasant spell of weather for many. however, there is a different scenario where the weather patterns get completely flipped on their head. in this second scenario the driest weather would end up being to the north—west of the uk, and instead towards the south—east. we could end up seeing low pressure form and wet and windy weather moving in. so there's a lot of uncertainty. don't be surprised if the forecast changes then over the next few days.

live from london. this is bbc news. israelis are set to go on strike after thousands took to the streets to protest the government's failure to release hostages held by hamas. more than 72,000 children have now been treated for polio in gaza — as the vaccination campaign continues. the main parties in germany say they will continue their boycott of the far—right afd party, despite its apparent success in a regional election. the use of dynamic pricing will be looked into by the uk government — amid an ongoing row about the cost of tickets to see 0asis. and, the sinking of the titanic. exclusive footage reveals more

about the wreck�*s slow decay. hello and welcome to the programme, i'm sally bundock. trade unions and groups representing the families of israeli hostages have called for a general strike on monday to press the government to reach a deal to free those still held by hamas. it comes as the israeli army says it's recovered the bodies of six hostages who were taken during the attacks of 7 october. these were the scenes in tel aviv. 0rganizers claimed more than half a million people turned out — demanding prime minister benjamin netanyahu negotiate a deal with hamas to bring home the estimated 100 remaining hostages. sunday's protests were largely peaceful — but crowds broke through police lines, blocking a major highway in tel aviv. here's what some of the protesters in tel aviv had to say.