Twitter has removed 40 fake accounts set up to influence Israel’s upcoming elections after they were exposed by NIF grantee FakeReporter, which reports online activity by extremist groups. FakeReporter said that the accounts were clearly intended to influence debate in Israel’s elections by sowing distrust between different factions of the right-wing and encouraging Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to run separately. It is believed that the accounts were operated by overseas organizations.

“The social network (Twitter) has been promoting the image of Otzma Yehudit Chairman Itamar Ben-Gvir,” Haaretz reported. “The accounts were removed hours after FakeReporter published the matter. Following the revelation by FakeReporter, security organizations also investigated whether the accounts were fake. All the accounts were in the name of Israeli men with Jewish names that were taken from existing Israeli users.”