Gaza-based journalist Bisan Owda regains TikTok account after outcry

Award-winning Palestinian writer regains relationship with 1.4 cardinal followers aft astonishment removal from video-sharing platform.

Award-winning Palestinian writer Bisan Owda says she has regained entree to her TikTok account, 1 time aft saying she was banned from the video-sharing platform.

Owda told Al Jazeera connected Thursday that she thought that planetary media attraction and unit from nongovernmental organisations had helped get backmost her TikTok account, though present visitors and followers indispensable benignant her afloat username to find her fashionable relationship connected the site.

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Owda besides said that she had received a connection from TikTok that galore of her video posts are present “ineligible for recommendation”.

Al Jazeera was capable to spot Owda’s TikTok relationship connected Friday, which has 1.4 cardinal followers, though nary caller posts are disposable from the Gaza-based writer since September 2025.

Owda gained designation internationally for posting regular videos from the war-torn Palestinian territory, wherever she greeted her assemblage successful regular video diaries, saying, “It’s Bisan from Gaza – and I’m inactive alive” during Israel’s genocidal warfare connected the enclave.

A contributor to Al Jazeera’s AJ+, Owda’s reporting earned her apical journalism accolades, including Emmy, Peabody and Edward R Murrow awards.

Alerting followers to the removal of her relationship connected Wednesday, Owda noted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is suspected of warfare crimes successful Gaza, had said that helium hoped the acquisition of TikTok “goes through, due to the fact that it tin beryllium consequential”.

Despite a ceasefire successful Gaza, Israeli attacks proceed connected the enclave, and past week, Israel’s ongoing strikes killed 3 Palestinian journalists successful the territory.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, astatine slightest 207 Palestinian journalists and media workers person been killed successful Gaza since October 2023, with the “vast majority” killed by Israeli forces.

The removal of Owda’s relationship besides came arsenic Israel’s apical tribunal again postponed making a determination connected whether overseas journalists should beryllium allowed to participate and study connected Gaza independently of the Israeli military.

Al Jazeera contacted TikTok for comment, but a spokesperson said the institution did not remark connected circumstantial accounts.

A spokesperson from TikTok told The New Arab media outlet that Owda’s relationship had been “temporarily restricted” successful September pursuing concerns of a imaginable impersonation risk.

The spokesperson said that pursuing further review, the journalist’s relationship was reinstated and is present operating normally, according to The New Arab.

TikTok announced past week that a woody to found a abstracted mentation of the level successful the United States had been completed, with the caller entity controlled by concern firms, galore of which are US companies, including respective linked to President Donald Trump.