Israel Has Raided Al Jazeera’s Bureau In The Occupied West Bank And Forced It To Shut Down For 45 Days
Since Oct. 7, the Qatar-owned outlet has been critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and has been providing crucial coverage on the ground.
Israeli forces have raided Al Jazeera’s bureau in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and ordered it to shut down for 45 days for “inciting and supporting terrorism”.
Since Oct. 7, the Qatar-owned outlet has been critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and has been providing crucial coverage on the ground.
As a result, several of its journalists in Gaza have been targeted and killed by Israel, including its Gaza bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh’s son Hamza Al-Dahdouh, his cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa, as well as journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami Al-Rifi.
Live footage streamed by Al Jazeera showed heavily-armed Israeli troops storming its office in Ramallah in the early hours of Sunday, Sep. 22.
Soldiers handed a notice to the head of the bureau, Walid al-Omari, ordering the office to be shut down.
Soldiers then told the team to leave the office with only their personal belongings and began confiscating documents and equipment, Al-Omari said.
Al Jazeera later aired footage showing Israeli soldiers tearing down a banner on a balcony that it said bore the image of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist that Israeli forces shot and killed while she was covering an Israeli raid on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank in 2022.
The shutdown order came despite the fact Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office is located in Area A in the occupied-West Bank, an area that is delineated as being under Palestinian control in the Oslo Accords.
The Israeli military acknowledged it raided the office 12 hours later, claiming without evidence that Al Jazeera was “being used to incite terror, to support terrorist activities and that the channel’s broadcasts endanger ... security and public order,” AP reported.
In April, Israeli lawmakers passed a law that would allow the government to shut down foreign media outlets that are seen as a threat to national security.
In May, Israeli forces then raided Al Jazeera’s office in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, forcing it to shut down and stop broadcasting in Israel for “endangering national security”.
The East Jerusalem office has been closed since, as the order was automatically renewed.
Al-Omari told Al Jazeera he expects the order for the West Bank office will also be automatically renewed.
“Targeting journalists this way always aims to erase the truth and prevent people from hearing the truth,” he said.
Al Jazeera said in a statement it “vehemently condemns and denounces this criminal act by the Israeli occupation forces” and rejects Israel’s “unfounded allegations”.
“The raid on the office and seizure of our equipment is not only an attack on Al Jazeera but an affront to press freedom and the very principles of journalism,” it said “These oppressive measures are clearly intended to prevent the world from witnessing the reality of the situation in the occupied territories and the ongoing war on Gaza and the devastating impact on innocent civilians.”
It added that it “will not be intimidated or deterred by efforts to silence its coverage”.
Israel’s latest actions have been widely slammed by media and rights group including the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
“Journalists must be protected and allowed to work freely,” CPJ said.
Cherry Mohamed
Isha Jain
Kassy Cho
