Qatari television channel Al Jazeera reported that armed and masked Israeli soldiers raided its offices in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and ordered it closed for the next 45 days.
It is a new episode in the long-running conflict between the channel and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a conflict that has worsened during the war in the Gaza Strip for almost a year between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
The Israeli military has repeatedly accused the Qatari channel’s journalists of being “terrorist agents” in Gaza affiliated with Hamas, which carried out an unprecedented attack on October 7 in Israel that sparked the war.
Four Al Jazeera staff members have been killed since the start of the Gaza war. Al Jazeera denies Israel’s accusations and says Israel systematically targets its employees in the Gaza Strip.
The channel said the soldiers who stormed its offices on Sunday did not give a reason for the closure: “There is a court order to close Al Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier told bureau chief Walid al-Omari.
“I ask you to take all your cameras and leave the office immediately,” the soldier continued, according to footage from the channel.
Walid al-Omari added that Al Jazeera was accused in the closure order of “inciting and supporting terrorism,” according to his comments reported by the channel.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army did not immediately react.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the Israeli operation on Sunday, denouncing it as a “flagrant violation” of press freedom.
“Disrupting the work of the media”
Al Jazeera office closure ‘confirms occupation’s efforts’ [israélienne] to disrupt the work of the media broadcasting [des informations sur] “violations of the occupation against the Palestinian people,” Mohammed Abu al-Rub, director of the Palestinian Authority government’s media office, told AFP.
On September 12, the Israeli government announced the revocation of the press cards of several Al Jazeera journalists, four months after banning its broadcast and ordering the closure of its bureau in Israel on May 5.
The moves were made in accordance with a law passed by the Israeli parliament in early April authorising action against foreign media outlets that “endanger state security”.
The 45-day shutdowns are renewable, and Al Jazeera’s shutdown in Israel was extended for a fourth time by a Tel Aviv court on September 11.
The ban had not previously affected the channel’s work in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, where Al Jazeera journalists are present to cover the war between Israel and Hamas.
The Israeli military has repeatedly accused Qatari journalists in Gaza of being “terrorist agents” affiliated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad, one of its allies.
For its part, Al Jazeera rejects the Israeli accusations and claims that Israel systematically targets its reporters deployed in the Gaza Strip.
The closure of the Ramallah bureau “is not a surprise,” Al Jazeera correspondent Nida Ibrahim was quoted as saying by the network. “We had heard Israeli officials threatening to close the bureau […]but we didn’t expect this to happen today,” she added.
The Hamas-run government press office in Gaza condemned the Israeli military raid on Sunday, calling it a “resounding scandal” and a “flagrant violation of press freedom.”
In May, Al Jazeera criticised its ban on operating in Israel, denouncing a “criminal act” that “violates the right of access to information”.
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