Israeli soldiers raided Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and ordered the Doha-based news network to shut down operations amid an Israeli crackdown on media freedom.
Armed and masked Israeli soldiers entered the building that houses Al Jazeera’s bureau early Sunday morning and handed the network’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari a 45-day shutdown order.
Al-Omari said the Israeli military’s closure order accused the network of “inciting and supporting terrorism.”
Al Jazeera’s Jiwara Buteri said Israeli forces fired tear gas near the Al Jazeera bureau and Al-Manara Square in the central part of the occupied West Bank city. He added that Israeli soldiers confiscated their cameras. Buteri said he feared the military might seek to destroy Al Jazeera’s archives stored in the office.
Israeli military vehicles left Ramallah after the attack.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, speaking by phone from Ramallah, said the West Bank raids and closure orders were “not surprising” after the previous ban on reporting from inside Israel.
“We have heard that Israeli authorities are threatening to close the bureau. We have heard that the government is discussing this with the military ruler in the occupied West Bank to close and close the channel. But we [had] I didn’t expect that to happen today,” Ibrahim said.
‘to destroy the truth’
Sunday’s raid comes months after the Israeli government banned Al Jazeera from operating inside Israel following its devastating war in Gaza, which has been reduced to rubble by 11 months of incessant bombing.
That initial closure order was for 45 days, but it was renewed and Al Jazeera journalists are still unable to report from inside the country.
After the raid, bureau chief Al-Omari raised concerns about what Israeli soldiers might do to the office.
“Targeting journalists like this is always aimed at destroying the truth and preventing people from hearing the truth,” he said.
The government media office in Gaza called the Israeli move a “deafening scandal”.
“We call on all media organizations and groups dealing with human rights in the world to condemn this heinous crime … which is a flagrant violation of press and media freedom,” it said.
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said Israel has no legal right to close any office in Ramallah in Area A, under the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) security and civil administration. He further informed that the operating license of Al Jazeera was given by the PA.
“This is the true face of Israel, which claims to be a democracy and supports press freedom,” he said.
Izzat al-Rishek, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, described the closure order as “a reprisal against its professional role in exposing the crimes of aggression against our people.”
“The closure of Al Jazeera’s office is the culmination of a declared war against journalists who are exposed to systematic Zionist terror aimed at concealing the truth,” he said.
Journalists are being killed and silenced
Media rights groups have slammed the Israeli government for restrictions and attacks on Palestinian reporters and journalists, particularly in Gaza, amid Israel’s ongoing war on the besieged territory.
Since the war began in October last year, Israeli forces have killed 173 journalists, according to the government media office. International journalists are not allowed to report independently from Gaza.
Among the journalists killed were Al Jazeera’s Ismail al-Khol and Samir Abudaka.
Al Jazeera Arab reporter Ismail Abu Omar was seriously injured in an Israeli attack in February.
However, attacks against Al Jazeera reporters predated the war in Gaza.
In 2022, Israeli forces killed senior Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Aghle while reporting from Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
A year ago, the Israeli military also bombed a tower that housed the network’s offices in Gaza.
Al Jazeera condemned the ban on reporting inside Israel earlier this year, calling it a “criminal violation of human rights and the fundamental right to access information”.
“Israel’s suppression of the independent press is seen as an attempt to cover up its activities in the Gaza Strip, which is contrary to international and humanitarian law,” the network said in a statement in May.
“Israel’s direct targeting and killing of journalists, arrests, intimidation and threats will not deter Al Jazeera from its commitment to reporting.”
Sunday’s test highlighted Israel’s tight control over the occupied West Bank, including areas it claims are under PA jurisdiction, such as Ramallah.
It comes two days after the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to end the Israeli occupation.
Rami Khouri, a fellow at the American University of Beirut, said it was part of a long-standing Israeli policy of “real news about Palestinians or what the state of Israel is doing to Palestinians.”
But Khouri told Al Jazeera that “the closure of this bureau will not prevent the world from learning what is happening because of the hundreds of brave Palestinian journalists and other foreign journalists in the West Bank and Israel.”
