A “Palestinian” photojournalist, Motaz Azaiza, has recently revealed how Hamas ensures favorable coverage for itself, and at the same time, grotesque coverage of the IDF, by reporters in Gaza. More on his revelations can be found here: “Journalist admits: Anti-Israel narrative driving protests is based on Hamas lies,” by Ahmad Sharawi, New York Post, September 21, 2026:
Journalist Motaz Azaiza’s new revelations exposing “SMART,” a Hamas-controlled group of reporters used to manage the media narrative about Gaza, reveal uncomfortable but important truths about nearly two decades of journalism.
The world has relied on a media ecosystem that forced journalists to operate within red lines set by Hamas — under threat of punishment if their coverage ever crossed the terror group.
That reality was too often lost by the time Gaza’s stories reached Western TV screens and newspaper pages — and it drove college-campus protests and breathless claims by so-called activists, as false allegations emerging from the coastal enclave were repeated as unquestioned facts.
But Azaiza’s revelation should come as no surprise: Ever since its violent takeover after Gaza’s 2007 civil war, Hamas has tightly controlled the narrative to influence the story that reaches the outside world.
Its goal has been to shape positive coverage of its iron-fisted rule and to legitimize its narrative of “resistance” — that is, violence against Israel.
In 2013, Hamas’ Interior Ministry brought Gazan journalists and social-media activists together for a workshop, coaching them on how to report news in Gaza.
Among the attendees was Abu Ubayda, Hamas’ infamous military spokesman and one of its most prominent propagandists, who was eliminated by Israel in 2025.
Hamas made it clear during the session that the press’ role is “no less important than that of the resistance on the ground.”
But the message was not only one of encouragement: The terror group made it clear that reporters would pay a steep price if they did not adhere to the Hamas line.
In 2016, Hamas arrested Mohammed Othman, a journalist working for al-Monitor, for exposing medical errors occurring in Gaza’s hospitals. Hamas later barred him from entering those facilities.
In 2019, Hamas detained 12 journalists for covering protests against Hamas’ rule and the economic situation in Gaza.
The repression of reporters hasn’t eased after Oct. 7, 2023, or during the war that followed.
In at least three cases during the war, Gazan journalists said Hamas fighters beat them or threatened them after they reported on locals who blamed the terror group for bringing destruction to Gaza.
Hamas does not only attempt to terrorize Israelis. It is also in the business of terrorizing fellow Arabs in Gaza who dare to speak out against the group, and terrorizing as well any intrepid reporters who report on those in Gaza who complain about Hamas. Hamas has run Gaza like a police state, and even now, though its numbers have been much diminished, its violent writ still runs in much of Gaza beyond the Yellow Line.
One story that Hamas tried to mold was about a rocket that Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched at Israel. It fell short, landing inside Gaza, in the parking lot of the Al-Ahli Hospital, where “hundreds” of Gazans were killed. The reporters inside Gaza were prevented from reporting this;it went out to the world as a story about an Israeli rocket hitting the hospital. Eventually the truth came out when detailed visual analysis of the site was made, leading to the conclusion that a misfired rocket had been launched from inside Gaza.
As we now know from photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, Hamas has total control in Gaza of what the journalists can report or the photographs they can disseminate. They use persuasion, “workshops” to school the reporters on just how to present the news, how to twist and explain away and often ignore any stories harmful to Hamas, and the threat of violence against anyone not following its guidelines is ever-present. In such a brutal fashion, the Hamas version of events goes around the world, while the Israelis try manfully to catch up with the facts. So far, Hamas has been winning; its Ministry of Misinformation has been running rings around the Israeli government. It puts one in mind, sadly, of what Jonathan Swift wrote in 1710: “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it.” Or as it was enlarged upon later by the Victorian preacher C. H. Spurgeon, “A lie can go around the world, while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
Wellington says
Count on The New York Times not being interested in this at all. A given.