The Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, a key chronicler of the war in Gaza, has been evacuated from the strip and found refuge in Qatar.
Azaiza, 24, who has 18.5 million Instagram followers, said in a video posted to the platform this week that he had been able to secure passage out of the blockaded coastal territory after documenting 108 days of the impact on civilians of the conflict between Hamas and Israel.
“This is the last time you will see me with this heavy, stinky [press] vest,” the freelancer said in an emotional video explaining his decision on Tuesday. “I decided to evacuate today … Hopefully soon I’ll come back and help to build Gaza again.”
The journalist travelled to Egypt’s El Arish airport, 30 miles from the Gaza border, and was flown to Doha on a Qatari military jet, a journey he said was his first by plane.
He wrote on Facebook: “I had to evacuate for a lot of reasons … I left with a broken heart.”
It is not clear how Azaiza managed to get permission from the Israeli authorities to leave Gaza. To date, leaving the territory has been restricted to some foreign nationals and badly injured people. Azaiza did not return the Guardian’s interview requests.
Azaiza already had a significant following of 25,000 on Instagram before the war broke out and had covered several previous rounds of fighting in the Gaza Strip. He has worked with the US’s ABC News and Turkey’s public broadcaster, and for NGOs including the Red Cross and the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees.
His photographs and English-language videos rocketed in popularity after Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October that killed 1,140 people and Israel’s subsequent declaration of war in Gaza.
The conflict has killed an estimated 25,700 people in Gaza and displaced 85% of the strip’s 2.3 million-strong population from their homes. Azaiza has documented the aftermath of airstrikes, including an attack in Deir al-Balah that killed 15 members of his family, as well as the daily struggle for survival searching for food, water and medicine.
He also captured moments of respite, such as meal times and football games, and his candid reflections on the war and its physical and mental toll resonated with his audience around the world. GQ Middle East featured Aziza as its 2023 “man of the year” in November.
At least 76 journalists have been killed in Gaza in the three-month-old war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This is the highest death toll of media workers in any recent conflict, with the CPJ accusing the Israeli military of deliberately targeting reporters and their families. Israel denies the allegation.
Others have been detained and allegedly subjected to torture, and Azaiza himself has spoken about receiving death threats from unknown phone numbers.
On Thursday, Azaiza shared a photo of himself with Wael al-Dadouh, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, who was evacuated to Doha for medical treatment earlier this month.
Dadouh lost his wife, two children and eight other relatives in an Israeli airstrike in October, and his son Hamza, also a journalist, was killed in an attack at the beginning of January. Dadouh himself has been injured twice since the war broke out, including in a December incident in which his colleague was killed.
