WhatsApp blocked the accounts of a large number of journalists and social media activists in the Gaza Strip, most notably Wael al-Dahdouh, director of the Al-Jazeera office in Gaza, and Hisham Zaqout, the channel’s correspondent.

It was noticeable during the Israeli war on Gaza that WhatsApp and other applications, led by Facebook (Facebook), blocked and restricted many accounts, which Palestinians say were motivated by Israeli pressure on these applications to restrict Palestinian content.

Attempt to restrict the island

Al-Dahdouh told Al-Jazeera Net that he was surprised by a message from WhatsApp on his mobile phone stating that the account was banned completely and without a time limit, coinciding with the entry into force of the ceasefire declaration at two o'clock last Friday.

According to Al-Dahdouh, the ban message came without introductions and without any warning or warning preceded it, and without committing any abuse of the content policies.

Al-Dahdouh responded to the ban letter, inquiring about the reason, and demanding to reactivate his account, which he uses professionally to communicate with news sources, but he did not receive an answer.

The account was banned for 3 days, before it was reactivated again yesterday evening, after the channel’s management in Qatar communicated with the WhatsApp administration in the United States, according to Al-Dahdouh.

However, he explained that his account and the rest of his colleagues in the Gaza office were back as if they were recent, and all correspondence and data on them had been deleted.

The same ban message arrived at Zaqout, and at the same time, stating, "This number has been banned from using WhatsApp," and he tells Al-Jazeera Net that as a journalist, he uses WhatsApp to work and obtain information and news and verify them.

According to Zaqout, the ban was "shocking and unjustified" as he did not commit any violation of the content policies and terms of use.

Like his colleague, Dahdouh, Zaqout did not receive a response to his request to the application management to return his account, which was activated after the channel's management informed the company that owns the application that the ban procedures are "illegal."

Zaqout says that more than once he received warnings from "Facebook" that his page, authenticated with the blue tick, might be deleted, claiming that it violated the terms of use.

Screen image of journalist Hassan Aslih's account that he received from WhatsApp regarding banning his account (Al-Jazeera)

A constant pursuit

Hassan Aslih, a journalist collaborating with Arab and foreign media, lost his WhatsApp account during the Israeli war on Gaza.

Aslih received a message, similar to dozens of fellow journalists and social media activists, stating that he violated the terms of use.

He tells Al-Jazeera Net, "I do not use WhatsApp a lot, and I mainly rely on the Telegram application. Nevertheless, I sent an inquiry about the reason for the deletion of the account, and I have not received a response until the moment."

Aslih resorted to changing the international introduction of his mobile phone number (the international calling key) associated with his account on WhatsApp, and others have resorted to opening new accounts with different numbers.

The applications allow Palestinians to use the Israeli international call key (+972) in addition to the (+970) key that was assigned to the Palestinians after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994.

And to fix bitter experiences with many applications and communication sites, he explained that his personal pages on "Facebook" were deleted 17 times, in addition to being banned and repeatedly deleted on Twitter and Instagram.

He attributed these hostile measures against Palestinian journalists and activists to Israeli pressure, and said that the administrations of these websites and applications are complicit with the occupation and are working to "suffocate" journalists and harass them.

Interdiction mechanisms and Israeli pressure

Technology and information security expert, Engineer Mahmoud Abu Ghosh, who was subjected to the ban on the fourth day of the war on Gaza, explained the mechanisms of these applications to pursue and restrict the Palestinians, in response to Israeli pressure from the highest political and military levels.

Abu Ghosh told Al-Jazeera Net: These applications operate according to specific algorithms that fall within the context of "hate speech and violence," but in order to target Palestinians, for example, without harming Israelis, according to the same criteria, these applications determine the target geographical area.

In Gaza, for example, entire social media applications identified keywords and hashtags such as (GazaUnderAttack) and chased any posts mentioning resistance or abusing Israel, according to Abu Ghosh.

The biggest focus - according to Abu Ghosh - was on the accounts of the most interacting and influential activists abroad by identifying the community that you have and interacting with you, pointing out that his personal Facebook account was blocked after European companies he deals with shared a post about the war on Gaza.

The technology expert said that Israel was greatly affected by the Palestinian content, which achieved a far greater impact during the recent war than it was in the 2014 war, which was evident in the shifting of balanced attitudes towards assigning Palestinians to influential personalities in their fields of politics, economics, sports and even international artists.

He added that an application such as "TikTok" - the majority of its users are young people under the age of twenty - had a great impact in dealing with the crimes facing Gaza in innovative ways.

Abu Ghosh explained Tel Aviv’s ability to put pressure on these applications, as it controls data centers worldwide, in addition to being one of the largest software exporters, and the administrations of these applications have interlocking interests with Israel.