A Gaza journalist who has met with Mayor Mamdani and been honored with a Nobel Peace Prize nomination and a spot on the Time100 list admitted that he buried footage of Israeli hostages being beaten by a Palestinian mob in order to protect the perpetrators.

Photographer Motaz Azaiza also revealed that all media in Gaza is controlled by Hamas through a single WhatsApp group — and the terror group will target any journalist who publishes criticism.

Azaiza — who has become one of the most famous journalists in Gaza — was in the territory on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas marched the hostages taken from Israel through the streets of Gaza, where all hell broke loose.

“People got out, watched, beat them, hit them, and I followed them and filmed,” Azaiza told the Taqarrab podcast.

“But I did not publish those videos.”

“Why? Because I did not want to ruin the lives of the people who were filmed,” the photographer said.

“I understood that Israel would use those videos to identify every person who was there and eliminate them.”

“I did not want to be responsible, even indirectly, for the deaths of those people in exchange for a few likes and views online,” he added.

Aziza also revealed that “every journalist in Gaza” is in a Hamas-run WhatsApp group called “Smart” that coordinates coverage in Gaza. One of the Hamas media directors based at the Rafa Crossing ran it, he said.

Aziza went on to say that he was targeted by pro-Hamas media — run through that channel — when he showed a video of a Gaza resident cursing Hamas.

“Photographers in Gaza have become accustomed to lowering their cameras the moment someone says something bad about Hamas, he said, “because anyone who dares to show reality is persecuted relentlessly.”

He said he had to flee the territory after publishing people criticizing Hamas. He now lives in Qatar.

Despite Azaiza withholding the footage of the hostages being beaten as part of his coverage of the war, some of the hostages who were paraded around the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7 eventually spoke out about the ordeal.

Itay Regev, a survivor of the Nova Music Festival massacre, said Hamas had driven him and others around the streets of Gaza and displayed them like human “trophies” to the angry crowds.

Outrage also broke out when reports emerged on how the body of slain hostage Shani Louk was desecrated by Hamas, with crowds in Gaza cheering and spitting on her corpse.

Along with his admission, Azaiza also criticized Hamas for plunging the Palestinian enclave into a war that has leveled huge portions of the territory — and resulted in the deaths of an estimated 73,000 people.

He also slammed Hamas for cracking down on local journalists who depicted the horrors in Gaza, which forced many like Azaiza to flee the enclave in the early months of the war.

“You brought us back to the Middle Ages,” he said of Hamas. “You caused women in Gaza to urinate into a plastic bucket. This does not bother you, but what bothers you is if someone suddenly criticizes you?”

Azaiza was named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2024 for his nearly four month coverage of the war, where he highlighted civilian deaths and the destruction caused by the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

He has also met with with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and even attended his election night watch party last November.

Despite the acclaim, he said he is haunted by what he saw in the Gaza Strip during the war.

“Gaza is the most toxic place in the world. You love it, but at the same time you hate it. You love it, but it hurts you and destroys you,” he said.

“The reality there forced things upon me that I never wanted — the price we pay to satisfy leaders who do not count us is simply unimaginable.”