According to a report by The Intercept website on November 4, YouTube has recently quietly deleted the accounts of three well-known Palestinian human rights organizations and their entire contents, accumulating more than 700 videos documenting Israeli human rights violations. This move comes against the backdrop of the U.S. government’s pressure on accountability for Israeli war crimes and is seen as compliance with sanctions related to the Trump administration.
The deleted accounts belonged to the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza, the Al-Haq organization in Ramallah, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR). These channels originally focused on showing Israel's actions against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including the mother's experience of surviving the Gaza conflict, investigations into the murder of journalists who exposed Israel's role, and records of the destruction of Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
It is reported that YouTube’s deletion of accounts directly stems from the sanctions imposed by the U.S. State Department on the above-mentioned organizations. The Trump administration issued sanctions in September this year for their cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to promote accountability for Israel’s war crimes. A Google spokesman said the company was "committed to complying with applicable sanctions and trade laws" and took the action to delete the account after review.
In this regard, Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Arab World Now (DAWN), said that YouTube's actions are shocking and "it is difficult to imagine that simply sharing information from these human rights organizations would violate sanctions." She believes YouTube's move is a surrender to U.S. sanctions and contributes to the suppression of Palestinian evidence and voices.
Al Mezan stated that its channel was suddenly removed on October 7 without any prior notification. Al-Haq's channel was deleted on October 3, with YouTube citing "content that violated community guidelines." An Al-Haq spokesman said the move represented a serious setback to the principles of freedom of expression and human rights protection.
As the oldest human rights organization in Gaza, PCHR pointed out that YouTube’s decision “protects those responsible (for related actions) from being held accountable.” Its international affairs officer, Basel al-Sourani, said that the content released by the agency is based on facts and evidence and only reflects true reports of crimes against the Palestinian people.
Although some videos are backed up in the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) or third-party platforms such as Facebook and Vimeo, the overall removal of official channels still causes irreversible losses, and the organization is worried that these contents may also be deleted in the future.
In addition to YouTube, other American technology companies have similar practices. A spokesperson for Al-Haq revealed that since September, its account on the email marketing platform Mailchimp has also been closed without warning, and its parent company Intuit has not responded.
This series of sanctions has been promoted by Israeli officials and pro-Israel groups. Related organizations have also been designated as targets on the grounds of terrorism, their assets have been frozen, and those subject to sanctions are prohibited from entering the United States. Although federal courts have put forward preliminary limits on some sanctions, the trend of suppressing information and free speech remains worrying.
Experts pointed out that YouTube’s actions set a dangerous precedent for other technology companies to further follow the herd. If this kind of compliance with external pressure continues, the space for global news and human rights disclosure work will be further squeezed.