WhatsApp faces class action in Israel over wave of account blocks
Israeli users and businesses accuse the messaging giant of repeatedly suspending accounts without adequate explanations or an effective appeals process. The lawsuit, filed in the Lod District Court, is seeking more than NIS 2.5 million and detailed data on account suspensions in Israel.
A class action lawsuit was filed Sunday in the Lod District Court against WhatsApp over a wave of account suspensions that has affected Israeli users and businesses in recent weeks. The amount sought was not specified, since information about the number of affected users is held by WhatsApp, but the claim is estimated at more than NIS 2.5 million ($830,000).
The lawsuit, filed by attorneys Guy Ofir and Victoria Reznik, alleges that WhatsApp has repeatedly disabled the accounts of Israeli users and businesses without prior warning, without explaining the alleged violation, without giving users time to correct it, and without providing an effective appeals process or access to human support.
“(WhatsApp) disables the accounts of Israeli users and businesses on the application it owns, repeatedly, without prior notice, without detailing the alleged violation, without a deadline for correction, and without an appeal mechanism and human response,” the lawsuit states. The plaintiffs argue that the conduct violates Israeli law, the duty of good faith and users’ reasonable expectations.
The lawsuit describes the problem as a broad and systematic phenomenon that has affected at least hundreds of Israeli users, and potentially thousands. It also points to an alleged admission by WhatsApp that its automated blocking system can make mistakes, citing the company’s statement that “sometimes there is an error in the process.”
In recent weeks, Israeli media outlets have reported numerous cases of WhatsApp accounts being disabled without an apparent explanation. The suspensions have affected both individual users and businesses that rely on WhatsApp Business as a key communications channel.
The plaintiffs argue that the pattern appears to be particularly pronounced in Israel. “This is not a global phenomenon, but rather a phenomenon that focuses specifically on Israel and Israeli users,” the lawsuit claims.
According to the filing, some users have experienced a recurring cycle in which their accounts are blocked, restored and then blocked again days later. The plaintiffs attribute the problem, at least in part, to a possible malfunction in WhatsApp’s automated enforcement system that mistakenly identifies legitimate accounts as violating its terms of service.
Ofir and Reznik said their law office has received numerous complaints from users and businesses facing similar problems.
“Every day, the office is contacted by users and businesses whose WhatsApp accounts have been disabled, seeking assistance after encountering an impenetrable wall from the respondent, and failing to receive any response, explanation or way to appeal the disabling,” the lawsuit states. The attorneys argue that the volume and frequency of the complaints indicate that the problem is not limited to isolated cases.
The lead plaintiff is Tick Travel, a travel company from Rishon LeZion whose WhatsApp Business account was allegedly suspended three times within roughly eight months.
According to the lawsuit, the company’s account was first disabled in December 2025 without prior notice or a warning. The suspension was lifted automatically several hours later without any action by the company.
The same pattern allegedly occurred again in early July. About two weeks later, the account was suspended for a third time, this time permanently.
“Some activity in your account may violate the terms of use,” WhatsApp reportedly told the company in a general notification. The message allegedly did not identify the activity in question and stated that it was not possible to request a review.
The plaintiffs say the repeated suspensions have caused significant commercial damage to Tick Travel because its business depends heavily on a longstanding telephone number and the WhatsApp account associated with it.
The company’s number is held by hundreds of existing contacts and has been published in online forums, according to the lawsuit. The filing argues that the number is not merely a communications tool but part of the company’s commercial infrastructure and an important source of new customers.
“When the account was deactivated, the applicant was suddenly cut off from the central channel through which customers contact it,” the lawsuit states. “Every day that the account is deactivated, the applicant loses many inquiries from potential customers, whose existence it does not even know about.”
The plaintiffs accuse WhatsApp of acting in bad faith and negligently and of violating provisions of Israel’s Contracts Law and Consumer Protection Law.
They argue that a class action is appropriate because of the potentially large number of affected users, most of whom would not pursue individual lawsuits, as well as the significant imbalance in resources between individual users and a multinational technology company. They also argue that a single proceeding would be more efficient than potentially thousands of individual claims.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to order WhatsApp to restore suspended accounts and to determine that its conduct violates Israeli law. They are also seeking an order requiring the company to establish a suspension process that includes prior notice, an explanation of the reasons for the suspension, an opportunity to correct alleged violations, an effective appeals mechanism and access to human assistance.
In addition, they are seeking compensation for affected users and asking the court to require WhatsApp to provide detailed data on the number of accounts suspended in Israel during the past seven years.
Ofir told Calcalist that WhatsApp has in recent months been relying on an automated system that blocks accounts with brief references to violations of its terms of service, without explaining what users allegedly did wrong or providing access to a human representative.
“The rampage has not spared all segments of the population in Israel, and many have fallen victim to such a Kafkaesque situation,” he said.
“WhatsApp is an essential tool for creating contact and communication between people, businesses, authorities, and organizations,” Ofir added. “The fact that the regulator has allowed such a powerful body to act in this way without supervision, without customer service, and without transparency or a reasonable explanation for its blocked users is a scandal.”
The lawsuit now puts the dispute before the court, which will have to determine whether the alleged pattern of account suspensions constitutes a violation of Israeli law and whether the case should proceed as a class action.
