Restricted Palestinian journalist’s account by accident, has been restored: Twitter

The journalist was reporting from Sheikh Jarrah, which is at the centre of flaring tensions between Israel and Palestine

Twitter on Wednesday said it had blocked the account of a Palestinian-American writer covering the conflict between Israel and Palestine by accident, and reversed its decision as military tensions in the region reach a fever pitch.

Mariam Barghouti, who has been reporting from the West Bank on protests against the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, was temporarily barred from sending out tweets while at the scene of a protest.

During the temporary restriction, Barghouti's bio and many recent tweets were unavailable for viewing, replaced with the message, "@MariamBarghouti's account is temporarily unavailable because it violates the Twitter Media Policy."

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Twitter had asked her to delete some of her tweets, Barghouti told Vice’s Motherboard, before reaching out to her and apologising for what it termed a “mistake”.

The larger issue was that Palestinian accounts have been censored more heavily in the past few weeks as those on the ground try to document Israeli aggressions, Barghouti said to Vice via a direct Twitter message.

“I feel like I’m in a war zone in Beit El,” Barghouti had tweeted right before her account was temporarily suspended. “Israeli keeps just went full forces with hundreds of teargas canisters shot. There are undercover Israeli police also came in a civilian car and tried to kidnap youth (sic)."

Israel and Palestine have been embroiled in full-fledged military conflict this week after days of clashes between protesters and Israeli riot police over the impending eviction of Arab families from a neighbourhood called Sheikh Jarrah. Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas engaged in the heaviest aerial warfare seen in more than a decade, with tit-for-tat airstrikes killing at least 35 in Palestine and five in Israel.

While the Israel-Palestine conflict has a long and violent history, the move to evict Palestinian residents from Jerusalem has been viewed by Palestinian leaders and citizens as an attempt to gain more of a foothold in the contested Old City of Jerusalem, which holds sites sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians.