by the Fox News
Children’s YouTube star Ms. Rachel faced renewed scrutiny on Sunday after a 2025 video of her calling Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza her “friend” resurfaced, days after Azaiza admitted he deliberately withheld footage of Israeli hostages being beaten by a crowd in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023.
Azaiza, who amassed millions of social media followers documenting the war in Gaza, said he didn’t publish the footage because he feared using it could lead Israel to identify and target the Palestinians who appeared in it — not out of concern for the hostages. “I understood that Israel would use those videos to identify every person who was there and eliminate them,” Azaiza said. “I did not want to be responsible, even indirectly, for the deaths of those people in exchange for a few likes and views online.”
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Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told Fox News Digital that Azaiza’s disclosure raised questions about his journalistic judgment and his decision to withhold the footage.
“After years spent claiming to share what was happening in Gaza ‘unfiltered,’ Azaiza revealed that he hid footage — not, per journalistic norms, to protect victims from further harm, but because he didn’t want Israel to arrest the perpetrators. Innocent civilians had been kidnapped, already sexually abused, and his concern was with the people that beat them and rejoiced at Hamas’ crimes. That speaks volumes about his journalism and his moral character,” Menken said.
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Photo: Motaz Azaiza attends UNRWA USA’s Gaza 5k event in Dallas by FeaturingDallas, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons