Saleh al-Jafarawiborn in 1997, had accumulated 4.5 million followers on Instagram. Users who in the last two years had gathered on his profile to find videos and information on the war in Gaza. It was one of the largest accounts with hundreds of videos that Saleh al-Jafarawi collected directly from the field. Saleh al-Jafarawi died on October 12, 2025. According to Al Jazeera the boy, 28 years oldwas killed during an armed clash between Hamas militiamen and fighters from the Doghmush clan. As Al Jazeera explains the situation in Gaza it is still complexdespite the ceasefire decided by the authorities.
Now his Instagram account has been cancelled and the videos are no longer visible, at least from his profile. al-Jafarawi said in an interview with Al Jazeera in January “living in fear every second” especially after “hearing what Israel says about me”. Among the accusations in the Israeli press was that of being linked to Hamas. His story was told to Fanpage by Mohamed Washah, correspondent for al Jazeera Mubasher in Gaza.
What happens to Instagram accounts after the death of their owners
Management after death of social accounts is a discussed topic. Instagram has a specific policy on user accounts deceased people. There are two roads. The account may become memorialized or removed. There removal request However, it can only be done by a close relative. Memorial accounts are blocked profiles. When you look at the profile you can see the wording in the bio “In memory of”. Published content cannot be modified and no one can access it.
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If you notice an account on Instagram that belongs to a deceased person, you can ask us to memorialize it. If you are a close relative of the person in question, you can request that the account be removed from Instagram.
It is not clear what happened in the Saleh al-Jafarawi case. Whether it was a direct decision by Meta, a policy violation by someone who had the password oreffect of anomalous reports. In fact the material stored in that account was a digital archive of the war in Gaza. An archive that is not easy to replace, given that over the last two years Israel has not allowed the media to enter the Gaza Strip.
