By Jon Gambrell | Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israeli troops raided the offices of satellite news channel Al Jazeera in the Israeli-occupied West Bank early Sunday, ordering the office shut down as part of a widening Israeli campaign targeting the Qatari-funded channel as it covers the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera broadcast live footage on its Arabic-language channel of Israeli soldiers ordering the bureau to close for 45 days. The measure follows an extraordinary order issued in May by Israeli police who raided Al Jazeera’s broadcasting office in East Jerusalem, seizing equipment, preventing its broadcasts to Israel and blocking its websites.
This is the first time that Israel has shut down a foreign media outlet operating in the country. Al Jazeera, however, continues to operate in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories that the Palestinians hope to see incorporated into their future state.
Israeli forces did not immediately acknowledge the shutdown. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. Al Jazeera denounced the decision while continuing to broadcast live from Amman in neighboring Jordan.
Armed Israeli soldiers entered the office and told a reporter on live TV that the office would be closed for 45 days, and that staff must leave immediately. The channel then broadcast what appeared to be Israeli soldiers tearing down a banner on a balcony used by Al Jazeera’s office. Al Jazeera said it carried an image of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist who was shot dead by Israeli forces in May 2022.
“A court has decided to close Al Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s local bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, in a live video. “I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office immediately.”
Al-Omari later said that Israeli troops began confiscating documents and equipment from the office, as tear gas and gunfire could be seen and heard in the area.
Palestinians were granted limited autonomy in Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank under the 1993 Oslo Accords. While Israel occupies and controls large areas of the West Bank, Ramallah is under complete Palestinian political and security control, making the Israeli raid on Al Jazeera’s office all the more surprising.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate denounced the raid and the Israeli order.
“This arbitrary military decision constitutes a new aggression against journalistic work and the media,” he said.
The Palestinian Authority administers part of the West Bank. Its forces were driven out of Gaza when Hamas took power in 2007, and it no longer has any power there.
The channel has been covering the war between Israel and Hamas nonstop since the militants’ first cross-border attack on October 7, and has provided round-the-clock coverage in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s ground offensive that has killed and wounded its staff. It is not yet clear whether the Israeli military will also target Al Jazeera’s operation in Gaza.
While including on-the-ground reporting on war casualties, Al Jazeera’s Arabic branch often publishes text-based video statements from Hamas and other regional militant groups.
This led Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to claim that the network “undermined Israel’s security and incited violence against soldiers.” These allegations were vehemently denied by Al Jazeera, whose main backer, Qatar, played a key role in negotiations between Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire to end the war.
The order to close Al Jazeera in Israel has been renewed several times since then, but so far it has not ordered the closure of the Ramallah bureaus.
The war began when Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on October 7 in an attack on southern Israel. They kidnapped another 250 people and continue to hold about 100 hostages. The Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
The closure of Al Jazeera’s Ramallah bureau also comes as tensions continue to rise over a possible spread of the war into Lebanon, where electronic devices exploded last week in a suspected Israeli sabotage campaign targeting the Shiite militia Hezbollah.
The explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday killed at least 37 people – including two children – and injured about 3,000 others.
