TEL AVIV – Twitter shut down a Hamas account on Friday that belonged to the spokesman for the terror organization’s military wing.
The spokesman, Abu Obeida, opened a new Twitter account on Saturday, writing, “Twitter yielded to the pressure of the enemy, which gives us an impression that it is not neutral in regards to the Palestinian case and it caves into political pressure.”
Last month, the social media giant closed a series of other Hamas-related accounts.
Twitter has been criticized for allowing terrorist groups, including the Islamic State, to use the medium to disseminate their message and recruit new members. Hamas used their accounts to call for attacks on Israelis.
In March, the social media site closed all the official accounts of Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in Arabic, Hebrew, and English.
The account of the Qassam Brigades spokesperson redirected its 196,000 followers to a new official Arabic page for the group and promised that despite the recent closures, his group would continue its social media operations.
“We are going to send our message in a lot of innovative ways, and we will insist on every available means of social media to get to the hearts and minds of millions,” he wrote on Twitter.
On Saturday, Abu Obeida also opened up an account on Facebook.
In the summer of 2014, during the war in Gaza, Twitter shut down all Hamas accounts.