Twitter closes dozens of accounts of activists solidarity with Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood

The Palestinian Center revealed yesterday that the administration of the Twitter platform for social networking has closed dozens of accounts that have published or sympathized with the residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem, due to the repression and arrest that they have been subjected to for days.

In a statement, the “Sada Social” Center denounced the Twitter administration closing dozens of accounts of activists in solidarity and working to cover the Israeli occupation attacks in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

The center – which is concerned with documenting violations of Palestinian digital content – added that these accounts had published tweets containing the hashtag #Save_Sheikh_Jarrah, in both Arabic and English.

He described the closure of these accounts as a punishment for activists and collusion between the Twitter administration and the security services of the occupation, in order to reduce interaction with the neighborhood issue.

For days, tension has prevailed in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, after the Israeli forces threatened a number of Jerusalemite families to evacuate their homes in favor of settlement associations.

Yesterday, the Israeli Supreme Court postponed a session that was scheduled to decide on the fate of a number of houses that the settlers claim to own, and the Palestinians say that the settlers are using forged documents to claim their ownership of them.

The Center demanded that the suspended accounts be reactivated, and that a free space be provided for all website users to express their issues without discrimination.

Youth initiative

Sada Social is a Palestinian youth initiative that deals with administrations of communication sites, in an attempt to do justice to Palestinian content, and documents violations of this content.

The director of the center, Iyad Al-Rifai, told Anadolu Agency that the social media campaign on Palestinian content began on Wednesday by closing the account of activist Mona Al-Kurd on the Instagram application, and she is among the neighborhood residents who are threatened by the occupation with eviction.

He added that “Sada Social” sent messages to the Twitter administration explaining the reason for closing Palestinian accounts, and awaiting a response. The reason for the closure is likely to be the Israeli government’s request to block content related to Sheikh Jarrah’s case.

In a report on April, published on Sunday, the Center documented 38 violations of Palestinian content on social media.

“Sada Social” stated that the most violations were on the Facebook platform and affected 30 accounts, Instagram (3 accounts), Twitter (two accounts), and each of TikTok, YouTube, and WhatsApp, and affected one account in each.