YouTube Removes Over 700 Videos Documenting Israeli Violence

Translated by Martina Marino

At the beginning of October, YouTube removed more than 700 videos from the accounts of three major Palestinian human rights organizations: Al-Haq, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. These videos were reports documenting a series of violent acts committed by Israeli soldiers or settlers against Palestinian people and property, and more broadly denounced abuses and violations of international law by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank.

This was reported by an investigation conducted by The Intercept, which explains that the removal of the videos was a direct consequence of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration against the three organizations. On September 4, a press release from Secretary of State Rubio announced sanctions under Executive Order 14203, the same order used to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court.

The press release states that “these groups have directly engaged in supporting the efforts of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli citizens without Israel’s consent,” actions that the U.S. considers illegitimate. The release further reiterates that neither the United States nor Israel are parties to the Rome Statute, and therefore believe that the International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction over them. For this reason, anyone collaborating with the Court—such as the three Palestinian organizations—faces similar sanctions.

YouTube spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle confirmed the reason for the removal, stating that “Google is committed to complying with applicable sanctions and trade compliance laws.” Google’s Sanctions Compliance editorial policy explicitly states that it cannot publish content from “entities or individuals subject to restrictions under applicable trade sanctions and export control laws.”

The groups therefore saw their videos removed because, YouTube warned, “the content violates our guidelines.” A spokesperson for Al Mezan stated that “shutting down the channel deprives us of the ability to reach those we want to convey our message to and thus fulfill our mission.” Al-Haq declared that it considers this shutdown, which occurred without prior notice, an “alarming step backward for human rights,” as well as a sign of how U.S. sanctions are being used to silence Palestinian voices and obstruct the work of exposing Israeli accountability.

The content of the removed videos ranged from investigations—such as an analysis of the 2022 killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot in the neck while wearing a helmet and bulletproof vest marked “press”—to testimonies of torture and documentaries like “The Beach,” which documented the killing of several children while they were on the beach.

YouTube’s decision has been seen as an act of complicity by the platform with the Israeli and American governments in obstructing the exposure of Israeli violence. This is not the first time YouTube has been accused of acting in this way: The Intercept reported earlier this year the shutdown of the account of a group providing legal support to Palestinian prisoners (the Addameer Prisoner's Support Association) following similar sanctions. The same accusations were made a decade ago, when Palestinian groups denounced the uneven application of YouTube’s guidelines to their content compared to Israeli content. A 2024 investigation by Wired confirmed this practice.

Israel had already delegitimized the work of the organizations, accusing them of collaborating with Hamas. However, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is recognized by the United Nations as the oldest human rights organization in Gaza, and in 2024 the UN itself condemned attacks against the center when Israeli airstrikes hit its offices in Gaza City, Jabalya, Khan Younis, and Rafah, damaging the facilities and, most notably, killing several staff members.

The genocide in Gaza has highlighted the importance of direct information channels and social media as a means of transmitting news, and especially as the only way to disseminate information from inside the Strip. Israel has, in fact, banned the entry of international press; the few journalists who have been allowed in have always been escorted by IDF soldiers, and their material had to be reviewed and approved by Israel itself, effectively preventing truly independent reporting. For this reason, the work of journalists and organizations on the ground is crucial, which is also why Israel has carried out several attacks against both groups.

Already in 2022, the Committee to Protect Journalists published a report documenting a long-standing pattern of delegitimization by Israel of Palestinian journalists, often through accusations of terrorist affiliations but without evidence (a pattern that repeated itself in August of this year, with the killing of Anas al-Sharif, a prominent Al Jazeera journalist, who was killed along with four colleagues in an airstrike on the journalists’ tent). The purpose appears to be to legitimize targeted killings. The consequence is a threat to the independence and freedom of the press.

For Palestinians, videos published directly by themselves have been and continue to be the primary—and necessary—means of communication to share their tragedy with the world, in what has often been called the first live-streamed genocide in history.

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