Messaging app WhatsApp blocks the accounts of dozens of Palestinian journalists following this month’s fighting between Israel and Hamas, reporters say.
Shortly after a ceasefire went into effect at 2:00 a.m. on Friday ending 11 days of conflict, two journalists in AFP’s Gaza City bureau received notices from WhatsApp in Arabic informing them their accounts had been blocked.
Other journalists, in Jerusalem and the West Bank as well as Gaza, said their accounts had also been blocked.
A crew from Qatar-based satellite news channel Al-Jazeera said their accounts had later been restored after they lodged complaints with WhatsApp owner Facebook.
The vice president of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, Tahseen al-Astall, says “around 100 journalists” in Gaza had seen their accounts blocked.
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