The government accuses the Qatari channel of “incitement to sedition” and “interference” in its affairs. Hamas, Fatah's great rival, calls on the Palestinian Authority to “immediately reverse its decision”.
The Palestinian Authority decided on Wednesday, according to the official Wafa news agency, to suspend the broadcasting and activities of the Qatari channel Al Jazeera in the Palestinian Territories, accusing it in particular of“incitement to sedition” and“interference” in his business.
“The relevant ministerial committee, consisting of the Ministries of Culture, Interior and Communications, decided to suspend broadcasting and freeze all activities of the Al Jazeera channel and its bureau in Palestine, as well as to temporarily suspend the work of all journalists, employees, teams and affiliated channels until its legal status is rectified,” reports Wafa.
“This decision comes in response to Al Jazeera's insistence on broadcasting content and reporting characterized by disinformation, incitement to sedition and interference in internal Palestinian affairs,” adds the agency.
An Al Jazeera employee in the occupied West Bank confirmed to AFP that the channel's office in Ramallah had been notified of its suspension on Wednesday. Al Jazeera broadcast images on Wednesday evening showing Palestinian Authority police officers bringing to its journalists in Ramallah an official court document, dated January 1, 2025.
Already banned in Israel
The Palestinian Authority, chaired by Mahmoud Abbas, holds partial administrative authority in the West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967. Its security forces have been involved for several weeks in violent clashes in Jenin with armed factions, which have already made a ten deaths.
These groups, most of whose members belong to the Islamist movement Hamas and Islamic Jihad, consider themselves more effective in fighting Israel than the Palestinian Authority. Al Jazeera denounced last week a “campaign” of Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement against him in the occupied West Bank. “This campaign follows the channel’s coverage of clashes between security forces and armed resistance in Jenin”explained the Qatari channel, which defended the neutrality of its work.
Hamas, Fatah's arch-rival, called the decision to suspend Al Jazeera a “blatant violation of press freedom” and“repressive act intended to silence dissonant voices”. “This decision is in line with a recent series of arbitrary measures taken by the Authority to hinder public rights and freedoms, and strengthen its security hold over the Palestinian people”added the movement in a statement, calling on the Palestinian Authority to “immediately reverse your decision”.
Islamic Jihad, another armed Palestinian group, also protested the Palestinian Authority's ban on Al Jazeera. “We condemn the decision of the authorities to close the Al Jazeera bureau in Palestine, when our people and our cause urgently need to make their suffering known to the whole world”the organization that participated in the October 7, 2023 attack in Israel said in a statement.
Israel had already decided last May to ban the broadcast of Al Jazeera in the country and to close its offices there. The result of a long-running conflict between the channel and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has escalated during the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip for almost 15 months. The Israeli army has repeatedly accused Al Jazeera journalists of being “terrorist agents” in Gaza affiliated with Hamas, author of an unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023 in Israel which sparked the war.
