Israel repressing pro-Intifada social media activists

The Israeli security services arrested 400 Palestinians since October 2015 for their social media posts, especially those published on Facebook.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in a report on Sunday that the Israeli security services imposed strict censorship on social media websites to identify those who have intentions to carry out anti-occupation attacks.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) developed, in cooperation with the intelligence services, a data bank based on an automatic sorting of the Palestinian posts and comments on social media.

The Israeli security services arrested this number of Palestinians after an in-depth examination and monitoring of the posts of 2,200 Palestinians who were accused of having motives that suggest the possibility of carrying out attacks.

The Hebrew website NRG said that the Israeli authorities consider Silwad town, near Ramallah city, as the city which has the largest number of would-be attackers.

The website pointed out, quoting a senior Israeli officer whose identity was not disclosed, that the Israeli army and the intelligence services are following up the inciting posts and working to stop the flow of money to Silwad where anti-occupation armed attacks are being allegedly planned and confiscate the equipment allegedly used for manufacturing weapons.