Image shows a view of the Al Jazeera television network’s offices in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on May 5, 2024.
Zain Jaafar Afp | Getty Images
Israeli forces stormed the offices of satellite news network Al Jazeera in the Israeli-controlled West Bank early Sunday, ordering the bureau closed amid a widespread campaign by Israel targeting the Qatar-funded broadcaster for its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera aired live footage of the Israeli army on its Arabic-language channel ordering the office to close for 45 days. It follows an extraordinary order issued in May that saw Israeli police raid Al Jazeera’s broadcast positions in East Jerusalem, seizing equipment there, preventing broadcasts in Israel and blocking its website.
The move is the first time Israel has ever shut down a foreign news outlet operating in the country. However, Al Jazeera continues to operate in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, an area the Palestinians want for a future state.
There was no immediate acknowledgment of the closure by Israeli forces. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. Al Jazeera rejected the move as it continued to broadcast live from Amman in neighboring Jordan.
Armed Israeli forces entered the office and told reporters live on air that it would be closed for 45 days, saying staff must leave immediately. The network later broadcast what appeared to be Israeli soldiers tearing down a banner on the balcony used by the Al Jazeera office. Al Jazeera says it has images of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian-American journalist who was shot dead by Israeli forces in May 2022.
“There is a court ruling to close Al Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s local bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, in live footage. “I’m asking you to take all the cameras and leave the office now.”
Al-Omari then said that the Israeli army began confiscating documents and equipment in the bureau, as tear gas and gunfire could be seen and heard in the area.
The Palestinians secured limited government in Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank through the Oslo accords of 1993. While Israel controls and controls large areas of the West Bank, Ramallah is under Palestinian political and security control, making the Israeli attack on the Al Jazeera office even more surprising.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned the attack and the Israeli order.
“This arbitrary military decision is a new aggression against journalistic and media work,” he said.
The Palestinian Authority governs parts of the West Bank. His forces were expelled from Gaza when Hamas seized power in 2007, and there is no power there.
The network has been reporting on the Israel-Hamas war non-stop since the militants’ initial cross-border attack on October 7 and has maintained 24-hour coverage of the Gaza Strip amid Israeli ground attacks that have killed and wounded members of its staff. It is unclear whether the Israeli military will target Al Jazeera’s operations in Gaza as well.
While covering casualties of the war on the ground, Al Jazeera’s Arab arm often publishes verbatim video statements from Hamas and other regional militant groups.
That led to Israeli claims by officials up to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the network was “undermining Israel’s security and harassing its soldiers.” The claim was strongly denied by Al Jazeera, whose main funder, Qatar, was key 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, but it has not ordered the closure of the Ramallah office.
The war began when Hamas-led fighters killed an estimated 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel. They kidnapped another 250 people and still held around 100 hostages. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
The closure of Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office also comes as tensions continue to rise over the war’s expansion into Lebanon, where electronic devices exploded last week in a possible sabotage campaign by Israel targeting the Shiite militia Hezbollah.
The blasts on Tuesday and Wednesday killed at least 37 people – including two children – and injured around 3,000 others.