Motaz Azaiza: The Man Behind the Lens, and the Grief It Carries

There are two versions of Motaz Azaiza. There is the one etched into the consciousness of millions, lens slung over his shoulder, eyes bloodshot, not just from sleepless nights, but from witnessing what no one should ever have to.

The man who didn't just document Israel's genocide in Gaza, he became a portal, a lifeline, a resistance not of weapons, but of truth.

But then there is the other Motaz.

The one I met at the Web Summit in Doha away from the rubble and sirens. The man, not the symbol. Still fierce, still unfiltered, but softer too, honest in a way that hurts. Human, in a way the internet often forgets to allow.

We sat down, not to perform grief, but to process it. To talk, not for the algorithm, but for ourselves, about what it means to carry trauma while the world scrolls past. About how visibility is both a lifeline and a wound.

This isn't an interview, it's a heart to heart, between two Palestinians, shaped by different histories, speaking from different wounds, but bound by the same longing for justice, for connection, for a future we have never been allowed to imagine.

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