Several Palestinians documenting the Gaza war have become Instagram superstars.
In total, almost 18 million people follow the photographer Motaz Azaizaneditor Plestia Alaqadin and filmmaker Bisan Owdan social media.
They publish content from Gaza on Instagram, which international news agencies currently have no opportunity to produce.
Did a dissertation on the media war in the Middle East Tapio Kujala points out that popular Palestinian social media faces have realized the power of an image to generate compassion.
– They strive to spread the Palestinian message to the international audience.
Through the accounts of Azaiza, Alaqadi and Owda, millions of Instagram users get to see the extreme everyday life of Gaza: houses destroyed by airstrikes, people rescued from the ruins, refugee camps, children playing, dead children and reports of what the documenters see and feel at each moment.
In the video, Bisan Owda tearfully talks about how the entrance to the hospital is bombed just after he has left the door.
In Kujala’s opinion, there is no reason to suspect that the situations on the videos are fake. The researcher says that, according to his information, Alaqadi’s account is also monitored a lot in the West Bank.
The social media service Instagram has given Palestinian influencers a blue verification mark. It means that the service has confirmed the identity of those behind the accounts of popular Palestinian journalists.
However, claims are also spreading on social media that the super popular Palestinian bloggers are in the hands of the terrorist organization Hamas. No evidence has been presented to support the claim.
Finnish expert Kujala recognizes the phenomenon. He believes it has to do with the fact that there are strong emotions associated with the conflict in the Middle East. In addition, war is always fought over how the views of the different parties are presented in the media.
– Even a Finnish researcher who speaks on television is easily labeled as a Hamas advocate, even if he is only trying to describe the background of the conflict. The media war is extremely tough, Kujala describes.
Images are powerful means of influence, and the parties to the war use them to advance their cause. In addition, efforts can be made to brand the sender of the images so that the image loses its power.
tried to reach out to Palestinian content producers for this story. In this story, we present the Instagram updates of popular content creators to show what kind of material they are posting from Gaza.
A photographer captures the horrors
Palestinian photographer Motaz Azaiza had 25,000 followers on Instagram before the attack by Hamas on October 7. Now his account is followed by more than 13 million people and his publications have tens of millions of impressions.
Azaiza describes Israeli airstrikes and the destruction they cause. In perhaps his most famous video, he describes his family’s destroyed apartment.
According to Azaiza, 15 of his relatives were killed in an airstrike in October.
Azaiza also uses her account to communicate with loved ones who are worried about her.
– I’m alive, still, the video message begins.
Some of the videos have a content warning about crude content added by Meta. The videos show, for example, many wounded or dead children. Many of the pictures cannot be shown on ‘s channels due to their brutality.
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, more than 4,000 children have died in Gaza since the beginning of October. Secretary General of the UN Antonio Guterres has described Gaza as a “children’s graveyard”.
25.10. in the caption of the published live video, Motaz Azaiza writes “in the yard of Al-Shifa hospital, children try to play by drawing and painting while the sounds of shelling surround them”.
3.11. the published video shows a man crying in the ruins and Motaz Azaiza walking in the middle of the destruction. “The suffering continues,” he says.
Azaiza is a professional photographer and the war photos and videos she publishes are produced with high-quality equipment.
According to Kujala, who has studied the media war, the cases of Owda and Alaqadi are more interesting from the point of view of propaganda.
In the Middle East, especially young women have usually been used as propaganda agents.
– Women, for example, play an important role in the Israeli army’s communications. Traditionally, women have been thought to soften the message that conveys the image of fighting.
Kujala does not believe that the young women posting pictures from Gaza are working for the terrorist organization Hamas.
According to him, Hamas usually uses extreme violence in its propaganda.
– For me, as a viewer, these images convey the experience of a young Gazan person.
Two million people watch the diary from Gaza
22-year-old journalist Plestia Alaqadi had 2.5 million followers at the beginning of November.
Alaqad has shown, among other things, Palestinian evacuation camps, the destroyed infrastructure of Gaza and happy children playing in the middle of war.
20.10. the published video shows tent accommodation in the Khan Younis refugee camp. In the accompanying text, Alaqad writes “heartbreaking”.
According to Kujala, Alaqad is consumed by the generation of young Gazans whose lives have been marked by repeated massive bombings and electricity and water shortages. Many of the Palestinians who grew up in the 21st century have become radicalized due to the peaceful social situation.
– Against this background, I am surprised that he publishes positive messages.
The woman’s videos have also received criticism.
Several users have questioned how Alaqad is able to publish content from Gaza almost daily, even though the area has extremely poor telecommunication connections.
– I get a lot of messages about how I can publish content if there is no internet in Gaza. We have no electricity and no internet. There is only limited network in some places. What I get published is maybe six percent of the content I documented in Gaza, the woman says in a video published on October 12.
According to Kujala, the criticism faced by Alaqadi is understandable. Communication has sometimes worked and sometimes broken in Gaza.
– The Palestinian connections are certainly down, but the Israeli connections still work in Gaza. Palestinians can have Israeli affiliations.
Internet service providers operating in Gaza have reported extensive damage caused by the bombing.
For example, in the Deir Al-balah and Rafah areas, the number of devices on the network was only 5-6 percent of normal at the beginning of November, says NetBlocks, an organization based in Britain that follows connections.
According to it, however, connections have been restored in the second week of November.
From selfies to war photos
The photo service Instagram is usually associated with flashy content, filters, and influencers, not news delivery.
However, the content produced from Gaza and the wide visibility it gets seem suitable for Instagram.
Meta, the company that owns Instagram not normally allowed raw content on their platforms.
However, shocking content can be shared on Instagram if it has news value and is in the public interest, the service’s terms of use say.
Tapio Kujala believes that the social media company is motivated by financial interests. If a publisher has millions of followers, the company benefits from the attention he receives. Therefore, social media companies can turn a blind eye to extreme content.
In October, Instagram and other social media services came under fire for a while because their it was claimed censoring pro-Palestinian posts.
Meta later admitted, that it had accidentally limited the visibility of some posts. However, the company said that it was a bug that affected all posts related to the topic.
Difficult for foreign journalists to work in Gaza
Since the escalation of the war, Israel and Egypt have not allowed foreign journalists into Gaza.
Kujala points out that this gives more weight to the Palestinians’ own messages. The content they publish has a strong influence on what kind of image is formed about the war.
– The popular Palestinians don’t seem to apply [pahimmille] to war zones, but transmit the image from where they happen to be at any given time.
The Israeli army, which is carrying out a ground attack on Gaza, has informed international news agencies that it cannot guarantee the safety of journalists working in Gaza.
Press Freedom Organization Committee to Protect Journalists according to at least 37 journalists have been killed by November 6 in the Gaza Strip.