Two campaigns encouraging people to add the Israel flag to their social media profile pictures have attracted more than 14,000 supporters in their first day.

IsraeliFlagMe and IsraeliLivesMatter were on Thursday trending first and second respectively on twibbon.com, a website which allows users to create custom backgrounds to support a variety of causes including breast cancer and LGBT rights.

The campaigns were created separately the previous day by two pro-Israel Americans, Leah Lubel - a recent graduate from the University of Georgia - and Gili Litvak, in response to the surge of violence in Israel.

Mr Litvak posted on Facebook before he launched the drive, writing: “Stabbings, shootings, vehicular murder, suicide bombings, rockets...and the world is deafeningly silent.”

In addition to the 14,000 people now using the Israeli flag as their background, twibbon.com reported that more than 65,000 users have liked the two causes on Facebook.

In the last fortnight, seven Israelis have been murdered in terror attacks, with dozens more injured. Tuesday was the bloodiest day of all, with four attacks in two hours.

Around 30 Palestinians have been killed, with seven Gazans dying on Friday after a crowd of 200 protested on the border, throwing rocks and rolling burning tyres at Israeli soldiers.

The #IsraeliLivesMatter campaign has sparked controversy in Britain, with more than 150 members of the community signing an open letter to the Board of Deputies and Zionist Federation (ZF) after the two groups used the phrase for a protest outside the Palestinian Mission this week.

ZF chairman Paul Charney justified using the hashtag by saying that his organisation “didn’t coin the phrase, but used it as it is in common circulation amongst the online pro-Israel community”.