Journalists called Wednesday for a Palestinian court decision to close 59 websites and social media pages to be overturned, with activists saying it appeared to be aimed at silencing critics.

A Palestinian Authority (PA) court in the occupied West Bank on Monday ordered the sites, most of them Palestinian, blocked on the grounds they were threats to "national security and peace." International press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the order included news sites with millions of Facebook followers, such as the Quds Network.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019