Israel closes Al Jazeera office in Ramallah in occupied West Bank

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israeli forces raided the offices of the Al Jazeera satellite news network in the occupied West Bank early Sunday, ordering the office to close amid a growing campaign by Israel targeting the Qatari-funded broadcaster as it covers events in Gaza. The war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera broadcast live footage on its Arabic-language channel of Israeli occupation forces ordering the office to be closed for 45 days. Order issued in May This prompted the Israeli police to raid Al Jazeera’s broadcast office in East Jerusalem, confiscate equipment there, prevent its broadcast in Israel, and block its websites.

The move was the first time Israel had shut down a foreign news organization operating in the country. However, Al Jazeera continued to operate in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories the Palestinians hope will be part of their future state.

The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. Al Jazeera denounced the move while continuing its live broadcast from the Jordanian capital, Amman.

Armed Israeli forces entered the office and told a reporter live on air that it was being closed, saying staff needed to leave immediately. The network later broadcast what appeared to be Israeli soldiers tearing down a banner on a balcony used by Al Jazeera’s office. Al Jazeera said it bore an image of Shireen Abu Akleha Palestinian-American journalist who was shot dead by Israeli forces in May 2022.

“There is a court order to close Al Jazeera for 45 days. I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment,” an Israeli soldier said in live footage to Al Jazeera’s local bureau chief, Walid al-Omari.

Al-Omari said that the occupation forces began confiscating documents and equipment inside the office, and tear gas and bullets were seen and heard in the area. In a later statement to the Associated Press, Al-Omari said that the Israeli military cited laws dating back to the British Mandate of Palestine to support the closure order.

The Palestinians gained limited self-rule in Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank through the 1993 Oslo Accords. While Israel occupies and controls large swaths of the West Bank, Ramallah is under full Palestinian political and security control, making the Israeli raid on Al Jazeera’s office all the more surprising.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned the occupation’s raid and the order issued by it.

She said, “This arbitrary military decision is a new aggression against journalistic work and media institutions.”

The Palestinian Authority administers parts of the West Bank. Its forces were expelled from Gaza when Hamas seized power in 2007, and it has no power there.

Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi later described the strike as affecting “the mouthpiece of Hamas and Hezbollah,” the Shiite militia in Lebanon that Israel targeted with strikes on Sunday after cross border fires From the militants.

“We will continue to fight the enemy’s channels and ensure the safety of our heroic fighters,” Karhi wrote on the X website. He did not address the authority Israel cited to order the office’s closure.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said it was “deeply concerned” by the Israeli raid.

“Journalists must be protected and allowed to work freely,” the statement added.

The network has been reporting on the war between Israel and Hamas without interruption since the militants first launched a cross-border attack on October 7. Al Jazeera has also maintained 24-hour coverage in the Gaza Strip amid a grinding Israeli ground offensive that has killed and wounded members of its staff.

It is not yet clear whether the Israeli army will target the Al Jazeera operation in Gaza as well.

Although Al Jazeera, the Arabic arm of Al Jazeera, includes field reports on war casualties, it often publishes verbatim video statements from Hamas and other regional armed groups.

This has led to allegations by Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the network has “harmed Israel’s security and incited against soldiers.” Al Jazeera has vehemently denied these allegations, with its main funder, Qatar, being central to them. Negotiations between Israel and Hamas To reach a ceasefire to end the war.

The order to close Al Jazeera’s office in Israel has been renewed repeatedly since then, but so far the Ramallah offices have not been ordered closed.

The Israeli government has taken action against individual journalists over the decades since its founding in 1948, but it has largely allowed a media landscape that includes foreign bureaus from around the world, even from Arab countries. It also banned foreign broadcasts by Hezbollah’s Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen news channel at the start of the war.

Criticism of Al Jazeera is not new. Washington criticized it during its occupation of Iraq after the 2003 invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, and it also criticized it for broadcasting videos of the late Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Al Jazeera has been shut down or blocked by Other governments in the Middle East.

In 2013, Egyptian authorities raided a luxury hotel used by Al Jazeera as a base of operations after the military coup that followed mass protests against President Mohamed Morsi. Three Al Jazeera staff were sentenced to ten years in prison, but were released in 2015 after widespread international criticism.

The war between Israel and Hamas began when Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in an October 7 attack on southern Israel. They also kidnapped another 250 people and are still holding about 100 hostages. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, and it does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

The closure of Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office comes as tensions continue to rise over the possibility of the war expanding into Lebanon, where electronic devices exploded last week in a possible Israeli sabotage campaign targeting the Shiite Hezbollah militia.

The explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday killed at least 37 people – including two children – and injured about 3,000 others.

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Natalie Melzer contributed to this report from Nahariya, Israel.