“WHAT about the Christians you killed in Gaza?” When the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) posted a merry Christmas message on their X account on Monday, Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza could not resist putting this question to the invading army.

His query was accompanied by a photo he had taken of funerals of Gazan Christians, who were killed by Tel Aviv’s indiscriminate bombing of civilian buildings, hospitals and churches.

The 24-year-old photographer has been covering the brutalities of Israeli aggression in Gaza since Oct 7. Forced onto the frontlines by the horrors of war as most foreign reporters were denied access to Gaza, he has now become one of the leading correspondents documenting the events inside the besieged enclave.

On his Instagram stories on Monday, Motaz revisited memories of Gaza’s past Christmases, sharing videos of decked out churches with trees lit up, a far cry from the rubble they have been reduced to today.

Palestinian journalist complains of being isolated after being considered ‘a target’

In another tweet, he expressed his frustration over being shunned as a pariah of sorts, owing to the fact that members of his community see him as a potential IDF target.

“It was painful for me to be isolated by some people from my community. Some of them asked me to not come to their places because Israeli occupation may kill me and they don’t want to die… I completely understand the fear, but did you ever ask yourself what Motaz feels?” he wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) account.

This fear is not wholly unfounded; at least 66 Palestinian journalists have been killed since Oct 7, when the Israeli assault on Gaza began. These include Asem Al-Barsh, a radio journalist for Al Najah who was killed by sniper fire, and his colleague Bilal Jadallah of the Palestinian Press House, who fell victim to a direct missile attack on his car.

The death of Al Jazeera Arabic cameraman, Samer Abudaqa, who bled to death after being wounded in an Israeli strike, further cemented the impression that journalists were being targeted by the IDF.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has recently filed a ‘war crimes’ complaint with the International Criminal Court, saying that “RSF has reasonable grounds to believe that the journalists named in this complaint were the victims of attacks amounting to war crimes”.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2023