Israel's New York Consulate will hold a "live citizen press conference" over Twitter on Tuesday hosted by David Saranga, consul for media and public affairs at the consulate.
Twitter is a free "micro-blogging" website that lets users report their moment-to-moment thoughts in "tweets," or messages no longer than 140 characters. Friends can follow these tweets and respond to them. The service is particularly popular on hand-held devices such as cellphones and PDAs.
Twitter has been used in the past by aid agencies to convey real-time information during emergencies, and famously by NASA for daily updates on the discoveries of its Mars exploration rovers.
But the Tuesday event, to be held between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Israel time, is "the first time that a government is holding such a conference on Twitter," the consulate said in a statement.
"We are constantly getting questions from the public regarding the situation in Israel and Gaza," explained Saranga, "so we are answering the public's call…to answer these questions directly."
Twitter users can take part in the event by going to: http://www.twitter.com/IsraelConsulate and directing their messages to @israelconsulate and including the tag #AskIsrael.
Questions will be answered on Twitter, with a link to IsraelPolitik (http://www.israelpolitik.org/) if the answer exceeds Twitter¹s maximum length of 140 characters.
