October 7 marks the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ horrific attack on Israel, which killed nearly 1,200 people, 815 of whom were civilians, and led to 251 people being taken hostage; at least 97 are still held in Gaza, and many are feared dead. Since then, Israel has waged a retaliatory war which so far claimed over 42,000 Palestinian lives, displaced 90% of Gaza’s population and has been characterised by blatant disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law. The conflict has caused immeasurable suffering in Palestine, both in Gaza and the West Bank, and the wider region, particularly Lebanon. One year on, there is no resolution in sight, and we are now on the brink of the abyss: an all-out regional war. Amid geopolitical posturing which continues to fail those who are suffering violations of their rights daily, international courts have been called on to assess potential war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. ARTICLE 19 raises the alarm over the freedom of expression crisis at the centre of this regional catastrophe, one which has silenced the voices of those affected and contributed to impunity for crimes committed in this war. We reiterate our call for an immediate end to hostilities. We demand justice and accountability for human rights violations and immediate action to protect freedom of expression. International bodies investigating potential atrocity crimes must consider the severe violations of freedom of expression in their assessments. Finally, we express concern about the surge of hate incidents globally, and solidarity with the Jewish and Muslim communities affected.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched coordinated attacks on Israeli civilian communities and military bases. Hamas killed more than 1,200 Israeli and foreign nationals, marking it the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. Hamas militants also abducted 251 people. At least 97 are believed to still be held captive in Gaza, with concerns that many may no longer be alive.
The conflict has since escalated dramatically. At the time of writing, over 42,000 Palestinians have been killed – 41,689 in Gaza and 695 in the West Bank. The humanitarian crisis continues to intensify, with 1.9 million people (90% of Gaza’s population) displaced and nearly 500,000 facing catastrophic food insecurity. The violence has now spread, as Israel launched a ground invasion in Lebanon, resulting in 1,669 deaths and an estimated 1.2 million displacements to date. On 1 October, Iran launched 200 ballistic missiles at Israeli military targets.
ARTICLE 19 is deeply concerned about the dangerous precedent this disregard for human life sets for international law and the erosion of norms designed to limit human suffering.
In the face of these horrors, protecting freedom of expression may seem of secondary importance. It is not. The attacks on free expression in Israel and Palestine, in the region, and internationally, contribute to the suffering, perpetuate violence and enable the utter lack of accountability that has characterised this conflict. They must stop now.
Censorship inhibits accountability and perpetuates impunity
ARTICLE 19 strongly condemns Israel’s intensified censorship of information related to the conflict and human rights of Palestinians. This has impacted the ability to document and report on human rights violations and tackle impunity for crimes committed.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 128 journalists and media workers have been killed since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza – making it the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern history. ARTICLE 19 is particularly concerned by the growing body of evidence indicating Israel’s targeted attacks and killings of media workers.
Those journalists who are still alive and their families have experienced immeasurable hardship since the start of the war. Some reporters working with international media have evacuated from Gaza since 7 October, as their outlets were not able to guarantee their safety. The resulting information vacuum has been further made worse by the fact that international media are still denied independent access to Gaza.
The challenges of reporting from inside Gaza continue to be compounded by communication blackouts. In January, Gaza experienced 7 days of a consecutive internet shutdown which Palestinian telecom Paltel attributed ‘to the ongoing aggression’. Shutdowns have been a feature of the conflict from the very start, with Israel’s blockade of fuel delivery causing services to go down across the Gaza Strip, and the telecommunication infrastructure damaged by the continuing bombardment – according to Paltel, 80% of their cell towers in Gaza have been destroyed during the war.
Israel also introduced a new offence in November 2023 criminalising the ‘consumption of terrorist materials’, with a maximum penalty of one year’s imprisonment which could be weaponised against journalists.
In May, the Israeli cabinet voted to ban Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel, after the country’s parliament passed a law authorising the shutdown of foreign channels’ broadcasts if their content was deemed to be ‘a threat’ to the country’s security. The broadcaster continued its operations from Ramallah in the West Bank, until 22 September, when Israeli forces raided Al Jazeera’s offices and ordered its closure for 45 days. Earlier this year, Israel seized Associated Press’ equipment and shut down its live feed showing the view of Gaza, accusing the agency of breaking the new media law by providing feed access to Al Jazeera.
It’s not only international outlets that are subject to growing attacks on media freedom. In 2023, Israel’s military reportedly stopped the publication of 614 articles by media outlets in Israel, and redacted parts of further 2,703 articles. In December, The Intercept reported on the Israeli military’s orders listing subjects that Israeli outlets are forbidden from reporting on – those included weapons used by the Israel Defense Force (IDF), security cabinet leaks and stories about Hamas hostages. Reports indicate that in the aftermath of Iran’s missile strike, Israel barred publication of specific details about the attack.
ARTICLE 19 finds these systematic efforts to silence journalists and media outlets covering the conflict deeply concerning, as they represent a grave threat to the right to information.
Disinformation is targeting journalists and humanitarian organisations
ARTICLE 19 is profoundly concerned by the weaponisation of information in this conflict.
Israel’s disinformation campaign aimed at ‘dismissing and discrediting Palestinians narratives’ has intensified since 7 October and has been facilitated by its crackdown on the free flow of information in Gaza. This has included accusing journalists, media outlets, humanitarian relief agencies as well as the UN of supporting Hamas and terrorist activities.
For years, Israel has accused the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) of protecting Hamas. Since the start of the conflict, those accusations have escalated In January – the same day the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its provisional measures order in the proceedings brought by South Africa against Israel finding a violation of the Genocide Convention was plausible – 12 (out of over 13,000) UNRWA employees in Gaza were accused of involvement in the 7 October attack. They were immediately fired, and the UN’s Secretary General ordered a thorough investigation into the allegations. Nevertheless, the cuts in funding have had disastrous consequences on UNRWA’s ability to provide life-saving aid, as the US, European Union and several other countries paused their donations to the agency.
Despite the swift actions taken by UNRWA, the agency continues to be one of the main targets of Israeli disinformation campaigns, with public officials, and sections of the Israeli media repeatedly claiming that the agency is “a haven for Hamas’ radical ideology”. Israel has bought Google Ads and launched social media disinformation campaigns, aimed at discrediting the relief agency and undermining its operations.
On more than one occasion, Israel has also painted journalists killed in Gaza as ‘terrorists’. According to Al Jazeera, the day before Ismail al-Ghoul was killed, an Israeli military spokesperson claimed al-Ghoul was a member of Hamas’s military wing; no credible evidence has been presented to support those claims. ARTICLE 19 recalls that under international humanitarian law, journalists are civilians and cannot be military targets. The baseless accusations appear designed to frame journalists as ‘legitimate’ targets, evading accountability for attacks on them.
These instances of disinformation are only a few examples of a wider propaganda campaign aimed at justifying Israel’s actions in Gaza and the region which has equated virtually all criticism of Israel with antisemitism – for instance accusing the UN of being a ‘swamp of antisemitic bile’ at the UN General Assembly – or labelling all protests against the killings of Palestinian as support for Hamas. On 4 October, Israel declared UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutierrez persona non grata and banned him from entering the country, accusing him of giving ‘backing to terrorists, rapists, and murderers from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and now Iran’.
Israel has not been the only actor engaging in disinformation. In the aftermath of 7 October, Hamas has used social media to spread fear and disinformation, sharing propaganda, incitement to violence, calls for the elimination of Israel and violent images on X and Telegram. Other actors, including China, Russia, and Iran, are also reported to have exploited the disinformation and confusion surrounding the war to engage in their own disinformation campaigns furthering their respective agendas.
Rising tides of hatred
ARTICLE 19 is also concerned about the unprecedented increase in the levels of hate speech and inciting language as well as the alarming surge in hate incidents globally.
In January, the ICJ, following the provisional measures request in South Africa’s case against Israel under the Genocide Convention, ordered Israel to take measures to ‘prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to genocide’, making specific references to comments made by senior Israeli politicians which contained inciting and dehumanising rhetoric. Since then, reports have suggested that Israeli State Attorneys are looking to move ahead with investigations into comments made by a number of politicians, as well as the National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. There are, however, no reports about charges being brought, and a culture of impunity for genocidal rhetoric prevails.
In September, a group of Israeli human rights organisations wrote to Israel’s Attorney General outlining how, since the start of the war, the right-wing Channel 14 broadcasted over 50 statements by presenters, panellists and guests advocating for or defending, genocide against Palestinians.
While the ICJ ruling on preventing inciting genocide was directed at Israel, Hamas has also engaged in inciting and dangerous rhetoric, for example claiming that they want to repeat the 7 October attacks.
ARTICLE 19 highlights that belligerent parties have a responsibility to refrain from engaging in dehumanising and inflammatory rhetoric which increases real-world harm and makes both sides more likely to commit crimes and violate the basic standards of international human rights and humanitarian law.
The conflict has brought with it a concerning rise in hate incidents around the world. In the UK, there has been a record increase in instances of both antisemitic and anti-Muslim incidents. The Community Security Trust reported a 204% increase in antisemitic incidents in a 12-month period, the highest yearly number recorded by the organisation; while Tell Mama found that anti-Muslim incidents tripled in the four months since Hamas’s attacks. Synagogues and mosques have been repeatedly targeted by arson attacks in France and Germany. In the United States, Jewish and Muslim communities continue to fear for their safety.
Antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate have also continued to proliferate on social media platforms. For instance, on YouTube, following the Hamas attack, there’s been a 43-fold increase in anti-Muslim comments and a 50-fold increase in the volume of antisemitic comments. Accounts posting anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim content on X have been gaining followers at a much faster rate since the start of the conflict – capitalising on policy changes introduced under Elon Musk.
Gaza is turned into a testing ground for new technologies and modes of warfare
ARTICLE 19 is deeply concerned about the use of facial recognition and other AI-powered surveillance and targeting tools in Gaza which is inherently incompatible with international human rights law. Israel has implemented a pervasive system of facial and biometric identification of Palestinians long before 7 October. However, the current phase of the conflict has supercharged its use of new technologies to help determine targets of attack and conduct mass surveillance of the population of Gaza.
Reporting by international media has suggested Israel has implemented a large-scale facial recognition operation in the Gaza Strip. A recent investigation by +972 magazine further revealed that the Israeli army had developed an AI-based program known as ‘Lavender’, designed to mark all suspected operatives in the military wings of Hamas and other groups. The ability to use surveillance technology to track and kill people raises profound concerns under international human rights and humanitarian law.
We are also troubled by the recent attacks in Lebanon and Syria which turned communication devices into weapons resulting in numerous civilian casualties and injuries. ARTICLE 19 has joined demands for those attacks to be investigated as potential war crimes. We also expressed deep concerns about the impact this attack could have in undermining people’s trust in the safety of their electronic devices, potentially stifling freedom of expression and hindering the free flow of information.
Social media companies continue to fall short of their responsibilities during conflict
Social media companies have fallen drastically short of meeting their responsibilities under human rights standards to protect freedom of expression while combating problematic content on their platforms. This failure has had far-reaching consequences for users, journalists, and the public’s understanding of the conflict.
Long before 7 October, users have been critical of the way in which social media platforms treat content related to Palestine. For example, an independent human rights due diligence of Meta’s content moderation practices in 2021 found evidence of bias that negatively impacted Palestinians’ right to freedom of expression. Meta committed to implementing some of the report’s recommendations. Yet, the algorithmic shadowbanning, over-removal of content and suspensions of accounts have only exacerbated since the start of the current phase of the conflict.
Demands from ARTICLE 19 and partners in the #StopSilencingPalestine campaign (first launched in 2021 and renewed in December 2023) remain unmet. Instead, in a problematic move, Meta recently revised its policy to expand its restrictions of the term ‘Zionist’ as a proxy for hate speech – raising concerns about the conflation of political expression and antisemitism, and undue suppression of political discourse, not least due to the use of automated decision-making tools which lack the necessary nuance.
Meta is not alone in its failures. Generally, as noted by the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression Irene Khan ‘overly restrictive, unbalanced content moderation or censorship of Palestinian speech on social media platforms seem to be the result of inherently biased policies, opaque and inconsistent content moderation, heavy reliance on automated tools to moderate and translate and a permissive approach to State requests for content removal’.
Social media companies have also taken insufficient steps to address the unprecedented surge of hate speech and disinformation, while at the same time removing content documenting human rights abuses and potential atrocity crimes.
On X, the algorithmic amplification of posts by paid subscribers significantly broadened the reach of accounts spreading unverified and misleading information and promoting terrorist messages.
Telegram’s lack of robust moderation has allowed the spread of both antisemitic content as well as hate speech targeting Palestinians. It was also used by Hamas to broadcast violent videos and images of its attacks on southern Israeli communities in real-time.
Reports show that TikTok has been flooded with atrocity-denying content and antisemitic posts, with some blatantly denying the events of 7 October. Hamas-produced videos celebrating terrorism have garnered millions of views on the platform, despite nominal bans on such content. Further, pro-Palestinian hashtags have significantly more reach than pro-Israel hashtags on TikTok.
It was also reported that Meta lacked equivalent procedures to assess the accuracy of moderation for Hebrew content as compared to Arabic. Namely, it lacks a Hebrew ‘hostile speech classifier’ to automatically identify harmful content, while such a tool existed for Arabic. This led to disparities in content removal.
ARTICLE 19 believes that the situation underscores the urgent need for social media companies to improve their content moderation and curation systems, increase transparency, and better align their practices with human rights standards to serve all users fairly during times of armed conflict.
The global crisis of freedom of expression
The dire conditions in Gaza have sparked global protests and expressions of solidarity for Palestinians. They were often met with suppression.
From the Middle East to Western Europe, countries responded to large-scale demonstrations calling for an immediate ceasefire with arrests, police violence, pre-emptive restrictions or blanket bans. Many states have restricted the use of phrases, slogans and symbols related to Palestine – most prominently ‘From the River to the Sea’ – in a dangerous conflation of antisemitism and political speech.
In recent months, student protests in Europe and the United States have been met with disproportionate actions by university authorities and law enforcement. Instead of universities focusing on listening to concerns raised by all students and fostering dialogue following growing tensions on campuses and reports of intimidation, islamophobia and antisemitism, police brutally cleared campus encampments and arrested hundreds of students. In Texas, riot police equipped with shields, batons, and assault rifles, were deployed against protesters.
ARTICLE 19 is deeply alarmed by the rising censorship, growing incitement and hate speech, criminalisation of protest and expression of solidarity in countries around the world. In the words of Special Rapporteur Irene Khan the ‘extensive pattern of unlawful, discriminatory and disproportionate restrictions on advocacy for the rights of Palestinian people’, all point to a ‘global crisis of freedom of expression’. We also agree with the Special Rapporteur that the repression of advocacy for Palestinian rights is ‘particularly disturbing in the light of the recent advisory opinion of the ICJ, which reaffirms the right to self-determination of Palestinians and finds that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful’.
Call to action for accountability
Freedom of expression has been systematically assaulted since 7 October; so has every other international law norm that seeks to protect human rights and limit the worst suffering during the conflict. The international community has failed to prevent the further escalation in the region which is now – following Israel’s invasion – leading to an alarming loss of life and destruction in Lebanon. We must urgently change course. The deadly cycle of violence in the Middle East and the severe violations of international law must end immediately.
There must be accountability for the crimes committed. As this conflict continues, it is already being litigated before the ICJ. After South Africa brought a case against Israel for potential violations of the Genocide Convention, Nicaragua filed a separate case against Germany in March 2024 claiming that Germany’s military assistance to Israel breached the Genocide Convention and international humanitarian law. In May, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed applications for arrest warrants against both Hamas and Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The June 2024 report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found that Israeli authorities and Palestinian armed groups are responsible for war crimes committed during the conflict.
We urge these accountability mechanisms to take into account the severe violations of freedom of expression documented in this conflict, including the killings of journalists, stringent censorship measures and communication blackouts enforced by Israel, that have seriously impeded the ability to document violations of international law in Palestine – and their role in fostering a culture of impunity and enabling further crimes.