Omar el Qataa is a photojournalist operating out of northern Gaza
Facebook has severely restricted the ability of Palestinian news outlets to reach an audience during the Israel-Gaza war, according to BBC research.
In a comprehensive analysis of Facebook data, we found that newsrooms in the Palestinian territories – in Gaza and the West Bank – had suffered a steep drop in audience engagement since October 2023.
The BBC has also seen leaked documents showing that Instagram – another Meta-owned platform – increased its moderation of Palestinian user comments after October 2023.
Meta – the owner of Facebook – says that any implication that it deliberately suppressed particular voices is “unequivocally false”.
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During a period of war, audience engagement might be expected to rise. However, the data showed a 77% decline after the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023.
Palestine TV has 5.8 million followers on Facebook. Journalists at the newsroom shared statistics with us showing a 60% drop in the number of people seeing their posts.
“Interaction was completely restricted, and our posts stopped reaching people,” says Tariq Ziad, a journalist at the channel.
Over the past year, Palestinian journalists have raised fears that their online content is being “shadow-banned” by Meta – in other words, restricted in how many people see it.
To test this, we carried out the same data analysis on the Facebook pages of 20 Israeli news organisations such as Yediot Ahronot, Israel Hayom and Channel 13. These pages also posted a large amount of war-related content, but their audience engagement increased by nearly 37%.
Palestinians mourn over the bodies of civil defence workers victims of an Israeli army strike in the Nuseirat camp, at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, December 16, 2024
GAZA’S death toll from Israel’s 14-month attack has topped 45,000 people, health officials said today, as a United Nations-run school housing displaced people was targeted.
Israeli forces bombed the UNRWA-run Ahmed bin Aziz School in southern Khan Younis on Sunday evening, killing at least 20 people, including six children.
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The Israeli military said that it had “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating inside a command and control centre embedded within a compound” that had served as a school in Khan Younis.
It did not provide evidence.
The attack followed the targeting of a school in northern Beit Hanoon that killed 43 people and another on a civil defence site that killed Al-Jazeera journalist Ahmed al-Louh and five rescue workers.
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Gaza’s Health Ministry said that 45,028 people have been killed since October 7 2023, in the besieged strip and 106,962 have been injured.
It said that the real toll could be significantly higher as thousands of bodies remain buried under rubble or in areas that medics cannot access.
Israeli troops and military vehicles cross in and out of Syria through a gate in the boundary fence near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on December 15, 2024. (Photo: Mati Milstein/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Turkey’s foreign ministry condemned the plan as “a new stage in Israel’s goal of expanding its borders through occupation.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would move to expand settlements in the occupied and illegally annexed Golan Heights, exploiting the collapse of the Assad government to further entrench its control of Syrian land.
Netanyahu said in a statement Sunday that “strengthening” the Golan Heights is synonymous with “strengthening the state of Israel” and declared that “we will continue to hold onto it, make it flourish, and settle in it.”
According to Netanyahu’s office, the Israeli government “unanimously approved” the prime minister’s push to double the settler population in the Golan Heights.
There are currently dozens of Israeli settlements housing roughly 20,000 people in the territory, the bulk of which Israel unlawfully annexed in 1981 after occupying it during the 1967 war.
Israel’s settlement expansion plan sparked outrage from countries in the region, with Turkey’s foreign ministry condemning the decision Sunday as “a new stage in Israel’s goal of expanding its borders through occupation.”
The foreign ministry of Saudi Arabiaaccused Israel of “sabotaging” Syria’s “prospects for restoring its security and stability.”
“The kingdom reaffirms that the occupied Golan is Syrian, Arab land,” the ministry added.
Israel’s military has wasted no time advancing on Syrian territory in the wake of Assad’s fall. As Drop Site noted over the weekend, “Israeli tanks have advanced into villages and towns in Syria’s Quneitra governorate, across from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, damaging streets, cutting down trees, and destroying electricity poles.”
“Israel ordered residents to evacuate their homes. When many refused, Israeli forces destroyed water supply networks and power lines in an attempt to force them out,” the outlet added.
On Saturday, as The Guardian reported, “Israel struck dozens of sites in Syria overnight with airstrikes” after the Israeli defense minister announced the country’s forces “would remain for the winter on Mount Hermon—known to Syrians as Jabel Sheikh—in positions they occupied last week.”
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of the rebel group that helped drive Assad from power, denounced Israel’s “uncalculated military adventures” but said that “the priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.”
“Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations,” he said.
Israel’s push for settlement expansion in the Golan Heights comes amid the country’s large-scale, catastrophic assault on the Gaza Strip, which Israeli forces are preparing to occupy indefinitely.
President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power in the United States is expected to embolden the far-right forces in Netanyahu’s government that are seeking to return settlements to Gaza and annex the West Bank.
Netanyahu said in a video statement that he had “a very friendly, warm, and important discussion” with Trump late Saturday about the future of the Middle East.
“I said we would change the Middle East and we are doing so,” the prime minister said. “I discussed with President-elect Trump the need to complete the victory.”
MPs show support for an immediate arms embargo outside parliamentPhoto: Jess Hurd
CROSS-PARTY MPs demanded action from the government today to put a halt to Israel’s onslaught in Gaza.
MPs debated petitions signed by over 100,000 people, calling for the immediate revocation of all arms export licences to Israel and 283,000 calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state, which were delivered before the general election
Since last October, at least 45,000 in Gaza have been murdered by Israel, in which Britain has been complicit through supplying arms.
In September, the Labour government eventually banned 30 out of 361 licences in a move labelled “tokenistic” by campaigners.
During the debate, Labour MP John McDonnell said: “I think history will judge us all for not doing enough to stop this.”
The former shadow chancellor said that while he was pleased that the petition is taking place “there’s a level of frustration now I don’t think we can contain any more.”
He asked: “Why isn’t democracy being exercised here to stop this?”
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREGenocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Palestinians carrying empty pots line up to receive meals distributed by charity organizations in Khan Younis, Gaza on December 13, 2024. (Photo: Doaa Albaz/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Lawmakers told the Biden administration they are “deeply troubled by the continued level of civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering in Gaza.”
As Israel continues to decimate the Gaza Strip with American weapons, 77 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives this week demanded that the Biden administration “provide a full assessment of the status of Israel’s compliance with all relevant U.S. policies and laws, including National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20) and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.”
Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) spearheaded the Thursday letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, with less than six weeks left in President Joe Biden’s term.
Since Biden issued NSM-20 in February, his administration has repeatedly accepted the Israel government’s assurances about the use of U.S. weapons, despite reports from journalists and human rights groups about how they have helped Israeli forces slaughter at least 44,875 Palestinians and injure another 106,454 people in the besieged enclave over the past 14 months.
“Our concerns remain urgent and largely unresolved, including arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid and insufficient delivery routes.”
House Democrats’ letter begins by declaring support for “Israel’s right to self-defense,” denouncing the Hamas-led October 2023 attack, and endorsing the Biden administration’s efforts “to broker a bilateral cease-fire that includes the release of hostages,” noting the deal recently negotiated for the Israeli government and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
“Further, we condemn the unprecedented Iranian attacks against Israel launched on April 13, 2024, and October 1, 2024,” the letter states, declining to mention the Israeli actions that led to those responses. “We must continue to avoid a major regional conflict—and we welcome the concerted diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and our allies to prevent further escalation.”
“We are also deeply troubled by the continued level of civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering in Gaza,” the lawmakers wrote, citing the administration’s October 13 letter imposing a 30-day deadline for Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Palestinian territory. “That deadline has expired, and while some progress has been made, we believe the Israeli government has not yet fulfilled the requirements outlined in your letter.”
Asked during a November 12 press conference if the Israeli government has met the administration’s demands, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that “we have not made an assessment that they are in violation of U.S. law.”
Shortly after that, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) forced votes on resolutions to block the sale of 120mm tank rounds, 120mm high-explosive mortar rounds, and Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) to Israel, but they didn’t pass.
Progressives and Democrats in Congress have been sounding the alarm about U.S. government complicity in Israel’s armed assault and starvation campaign—which have led to an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice—to varying degrees since October 2023, including with a May letter led by Crow and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) and signed by 85 others.
Citing that letter on Thursday, the 77 House Democrats wrote that “our concerns remain urgent and largely unresolved, including arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid and insufficient delivery routes, among others. As a result, Gaza’s civilian population is facing dire famine.”
“We believe further administrative action must be taken to ensure Israel upholds the assurances it provided in March 2024 to facilitate, and not directly or indirectly obstruct, U.S. humanitarian assistance,” the letter concludes. “We remain committed to a negotiated solution that can bring an end to the fighting, free the remaining hostages, surge humanitarian aid, and lay the groundwork to rebuild Gaza with a legitimate Palestinian governing body. We thank you and the administration for its ongoing work to achieve those shared goals.”
