Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Saka.

My guest in this interview recorded on August the 29th is a young Palestinian photographer

whose work has reached a worldwide audience of many millions, but in circumstances which prompt

in Motas Aziza nothing but darkness and despair. He first took up photography as a means of

capturing the joy, the love, the vitality to be found in his native Gaza, despite the hardships

of living in a narrow strip of impoverished territory fenced in by Israel. But everything changed

after October the 7th last year. After Hamas

gunmen broke down those fences to launch a murderous attack on southern Israel, Gaza was then

subjected to a massive Israeli military assault. With Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry putting the

death toll at more than

40,000, and the UN estimating that 90% of the 2 million-plus population have been displaced from

their homes. From the beginning of the war, Motaz Aziza was out on the streets taking photographs.

He captured death, injury, anguish, loss in intimate, graphic detail.

His work went viral on social media. His Instagram following went from some 25,000 before the war,

to almost 18 million now. Followers, the world over, were seeing the impact of the war through his eyes, his lens.

He spoke openly of his own torment at the death and destruction. And his fear, as scores of

Palestinian journalists were killed and wounded in Israeli strikes. After 108 days, he left Gaza.

Now he's an advocate for Gaza's Palestinian population from a distance.

What impact have his images had on him and on us? Well, he joins me now. Motaz Aziza, welcome to hard talk.

Thank you for having me. It is a pleasure to have you. Take me back some years. The young Motaz decided to take up the camera, to start taking pictures in Gaza. What was your motivation back then?

My motivation was because I don't want to be a useless person. I was in high school and I found my passion in photography.

Because my father used to have like a camera and I have a big album for me when I was young. And I started to take picture, capture everything.

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