Gaza war sees rise in anti-Palestinian, Hebrew-language hate speech

A digital watchdog has warned of increased hate speech and incitement to violence against Palestinians in the Hebrew language.

The Arab online rights organisation 7amleh said Sunday that they had monitored and documented hundreds of cases of digital rights violations through its "7or" platform following the latest escalation of violence between Hamas and Israel, which began Saturday.

The digital monitoring group said the violations included cases of hate speech and incitement to violence in Hebrew, deletion of Palestinian content, as well as the restriction of accounts advocating for Palestinian rights.

The 7amleh Centre maintained "continuous communication" with social media companies and had successfully acted on a significant number of these violations so far, the statement added.

"There is a massive amount of incitement in Hebrew on social media networks, and there is an utmost importance in combating hate speech and incitement because, as we have seen in previous cases, it translates into real-world attacks," Nadeem Nashif, the director of 7amleh, said.

"We call on social media companies to fulfill their responsibilities and ensure that content of this nature is not present on their platforms."

The NGO called on social media users to report cases of hate speech and incitement, particularly those written in Hebrew. It also urged users to report violations through its "7or" platform so the NGO can work on addressing them.

It said this reporting would significantly aid in documenting and monitoring the violations that affect Palestinian individuals and institutions.