Turkey on Friday blocked access to the Instagram social media network, the national communications authority said without explanation, following censorship accusations against the US company by a high-ranking Turkish official.

The BTK communications authority said in a post on its website that "instagram.com has been blocked by a decision on the date of 02/08/2024", without adding further details.

Many users living in Turkey complained on the X platform that they could not refresh their Instagram feed, an issue verified by AFP journalists.

The Turkish presidency's communications director Fahrettin Altun on Wednesday hit out at Instagram, accusing the platform of "impeding people from publishing messages of condolence for the martyr Haniyeh".

Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of the armed Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was killed in Tehran on Wednesday in an attack blamed on Israel.

"This is a very clear and obvious attempt at censure," Altun said on X.