RAMALLAH: Global news channel Al Jazeera said armed and masked Israeli forces raided its office in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Sunday (Sep 22) and issued a 45-day closure order.
It was the latest salvo in a long-running feud between the Arab broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government which has worsened during the war in Gaza.
Since the war began on Oct 7, 2023, when Hamas Palestinian militants attacked Israel, Al Jazeera has aired continuous on-the-ground reporting on the effects of Israel’s campaign.
The Israeli military has repeatedly accused journalists from the Qatari-based network of links to Hamas or its ally Islamic Jihad.
Al Jazeera has fiercely denied Israel’s accusations and said Israel systematically targets its employees in the Gaza Strip.
Four of Al Jazeera’s journalists have been killed since the war in Gaza began, and the network’s office in Gaza was bombed.
The broadcaster said the soldiers did not provide a reason for the closure order on Sunday.
“There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari in a conversation broadcast live on the network.
“I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment,” the soldier said, according to the footage.
Omari said the order accused the network of “incitement to and support of terrorism”, according to Al Jazeera.
“Targeting journalists this way always aims to erase the truth and prevent people from hearing the truth,” Omari said.
Israel’s army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian foreign ministry condemned Sunday’s operation as “a flagrant violation” of press freedom.
Shuttering the Al Jazeera office “confirms the (Israeli) occupation’s efforts to disrupt the work of the media in conveying the occupation’s violations against the Palestinian people”, said Mohammed Abu al-Rub, director of the government media office for the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the West Bank.
