Israeli soldiers raided the Ramallah office live on air, ordering it to close for the next 45 days. ‘We will continue to fight the enemy channels and ensure the safety of our heroic fighters,’ Israel’s communications minister said
Israeli troops raided the offices of the satellite news network Al Jazeera in the West Bank early Sunday, ordering the bureau to shut down, amid a widening campaign by Israel targeting the Qatar-funded broadcaster as it covers the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza .
Al Jazeera aired footage of Israeli troops live on its Arabic-language channel ordering the office to be shut for 45 days. It follows an order issued in May that saw Israeli police raid Al Jazeera’s broadcast position in Jerusalem, seizing equipment there, preventing its broadcasts in Israel and blocking its websites.
More images of the Israeli military raid on Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah. pic.twitter.com/BQJxXngk19— Hamdah Salhut (@hamdahsalhut) September 22, 2024
The move marked the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet operating in the country. However, Al Jazeera has continued operating in the West Bank and in Gaza. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. Al Jazeera denounced the move as it continued broadcasting live from Amman in neighboring Jordan.
Israeli troops entered the office and told a reporter live on air it would be shut down, saying that staff needed to leave immediately. The network later aired what appeared to be Israeli troops tearing down a banner on a balcony used by the Al Jazeera office. Al Jazeera said it bore an image of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist shot dead by Israeli forces in May 2022.
“There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s local bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, in the live footage. “I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment.”
Al-Omari later said that Israeli troops began confiscating documents and equipment in the bureau, as tear gas and gunshots could be seen and heard in the area.
Israeli Communication Minister Shlomo Karhi later described the raid as affecting “the mouthpiece of Hamas and Hezbollah”.
“We will continue to fight the enemy channels and ensure the safety of our heroic fighters,” Karhi wrote on the social media platform X. He did not address what authority Israel cited to order the bureau closed.
A military vehicle moves in a street outside the building where the Al Jazeera office is located, in Ramallah on Sunday.Credit: Mohamad Torokman/Reuters
At the end of July, the Tel Aviv District Court approved, at the state’s request, the extension of the ban on Al-Jazeera’s broadcasts from Israel. The injunction was issued based on a law passed by the Knesset in May. Judge Haggai Brenner noted at the time that defense officials believe that the content presented by Al-Jazeera constitutes a concrete danger to state security.
In May, the Knesset approved a proposed bill in a final round of voting that allows the cessation of Al-Jazeera’s broadcasts from Israel. Seventy-one lawmakers supported the law, with 10 opposing it.
The law authorizes the communications minister to halt the station’s broadcasts by Israeli content providers, to limit access to the channel’s website, to close its offices in Israel and confiscate equipment used by its employees, other than cellphones and computers. The cessation of broadcasts is contingent on the approval of the prime minister and the cabinet, and can be carried out only if the prime minister is convinced that broadcast content poses a concrete threat to state security.
Leave a Reply