DUBAI, Sept 22:Israeli troops raided the offices of the satellite news network Al Jazeera in the Israeli-occupied 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 the Gaza Strip.
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 East Jerusalem, seizing equipment there, preventing its broadcasts in Israel and blocking its websites.
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 Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, territories that the Palestinians hope to have for their future state.
The Israeli military didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. Al Jazeera denounced the move as it continued broadcasting live from Amman, Jordan.
Armed Israeli troops entered the office and told a reporter live on air that it would be shut down, saying that staff needed to leave immediately. The network later aired what appeared to be Israel 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 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. Speaking later to the AP, al-Omari said that the Israeli military cited laws dating back to the British Mandate of Palestine to support its closure order.
The Palestinians secured limited self-rule in Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank through the 1993 Oslo agreements. While Israel occupies and controls vast areas of the West Bank, Ramallah is under full Palestinian political and security control, making the Israeli raid on the Al Jazeera office that much more surprising.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate denounced the Israeli raid and order.
“This arbitrary military decision is a new aggression against journalistic work and media outlets,” it said.
The Palestinian Authority administers parts of the West Bank. Its forces were driven from Gaza when Hamas seized power in 2007, and it has no power there.
Israeli Communication Minister Shlomo Karhi later described the raid as affecting “the mouthpiece of Hamas and Hezbollah,” the Shiite militia in Lebanon that Israel targeted with strikes Sunday after cross-border fire from the militants.
“We will continue to fight the enemy channels and ensure the safety of our heroic fighters,” Karhi posted on X. He didn’t address what authority Israel cited to order the bureau closed.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said that it was “deeply concerned” by the Israeli raid.
“Journalists must be protected and allowed to work freely,” it said.
The network has reported on the Israeli-Hamas war nonstop since the militants’ initial cross-border attack on Oct 7. Al Jazeera has maintained 24-hour coverage in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s grinding ground offensive that has killed and wounded members of its staff.
It remained unclear whether the Israeli military would target Al Jazeera’s operation in Gaza as well.
While including on-the-ground reporting of the war’s casualties, Al Jazeera’s Arabic arm often publishes verbatim video statements from Hamas and other regional militant groups.
That has led to Israeli claims by officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the network has “harmed Israel’s security and incited against soldiers.” Those claims have been vehemently denied by Al Jazeera, whose main funder, Qatar, has been key in negotiations between Israel and Hamas to reach a cease-fire to end the war.
An order closing Al Jazeera in Israel has been repeatedly renewed in the time since, but it hadn’t as of yet ordered the Ramallah offices closed.
The Israeli government has taken action against individual reporters over the decades since its founding in 1948, but broadly allows for a media scene that includes foreign bureaus from around the world, even from Arab nations. It also blocked the foreign broadcasts of the Hezbollah-affiliated, Beirut-based Al Mayadeen news channel at the start of the war.
Criticism of Al Jazeera isn’t new. Washington singled out the broadcaster during the US occupation of Iraq after its 2003 invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and for airing videos of the late al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.
Al Jazeera has been closed or blocked by other governments in the Middle East.
Most notably in 2013, Egyptian authorities raided a luxury hotel used by Al Jazeera as an operating base after the military takeover that followed mass protests against President Mohammed Morsi. Three Al Jazeera staff members received 10-year prison sentences, but were released in 2015 following widespread international criticism.
The Israel-Hamas war began when Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an Oct 7 attack on southern Israel. They abducted another 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between fighters and civilians.
The closure of Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office also comes as tensions continue to rise over a possible expansion of the war to Lebanon, where electronic devices exploded last week in a likely sabotage campaign by Israel targeting the Shiite militia Hezbollah.
The explosions Tuesday and Wednesday killed at least 37 people — including two children — and wounded around 3,000 others. (AP)
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