Israeli authorities on Tuesday extended their order to close the Al-Jazeera bureau in Ramallah, in the West Bank, a few days after the Palestinian Authority suspended broadcasting of the Qatari channel there for four months. The extension applies, from December 22, for forty-five days.
According to an Agence France-Presse journalist, Israeli soldiers posted the extension order Tuesday morning at the entrance to the building housing Al-Jazeera’s offices in central Ramallah, a city under total control of the Palestinian Authority in matters of security.
In September, Israeli forces raided the channel’s offices in Ramallah and issued an initial 45-day closure order. At the time, staff were ordered to leave the premises and take their personal belongings.
The Israeli government previously approved a decision in May banning Al-Jazeera from broadcasting from Israel and closed its offices for a similar period of forty-five days, extended for the fourth time by a Tel Aviv court in September .
In September, the Israeli government announced that it would revoke the press accreditations of Al-Jazeera journalists in the country. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has long been at odds with the Qatari channel – a dispute that has intensified since the start of the Gaza war sparked by Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Israeli army has repeatedly accused the channel’s reporters in the Gaza Strip of being “terrorist agents” affiliated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad. The Qatari channel denies these accusations and accuses Israel of systematically targeting its personnel in the Palestinian territory at war.
The Palestinian Authority, for its part, decided on January 2 to suspend the broadcasting and activities of Al Jazeera in the Palestinian territories, accusing it in particular of“incitement to sedition” and“interference” in his business. Al-Jazeera denounced this measure, criticizing a “attempt to hide reality” in the occupied West Bank.
