News Mania Desk/ Piyal Chatterjee / 22nd September 2024
Early on Sunday morning, Israeli forces invaded the Al Jazeera bureau in the West Bank city of Ramallah and gave it a military order to cease operations, according to the network.
Live footage of Israeli commandos brandishing their weapons and presenting Ramallah bureau chief Walid al-Omari with a military court order compelling the bureau to close for forty-five days was shown on the Qatari channel.
Later, Al Jazeera stated that Al-Omari claimed the order charged Al Jazeera with “incitement to and support of terrorism” and that the troops had taken the bureau’s cameras before departing.
In a statement confirming the shutdown, Israeli Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi referred to Al Jazeera as “the mouthpiece” of Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Gaza’s Hamas. “We will continue to fight in the enemy channels and ensure the safety of our heroic fighters” he stated.Israel’s action was denounced by the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, which stated that “this arbitrary military decision is considered a new violation against journalistic and media works, which has been exposing the occupation’s crimes against the Palestinian people.”
In May, the Israeli authorities stormed the hotel in Jerusalem that Al Jazeera used as its office and prohibited the network from functioning within the country, citing threats to national security in broadcasts that the network had been authorized by an Israeli court to air.
The network, which asserts that it is not associated with extremist organizations, has offered firsthand reports on Israel’s 11-month-long military campaign in Gaza as well as a concurrent upsurge in violence in the West Bank.
Since the beginning of the Gaza War, there has been an increase in unrest there. There have been several Palestinian street attacks, Israeli army sweeps that have resulted in thousands of arrests, security force and Palestinian fighter gunfights, and attacks on Palestinian towns by Jewish settlers.The Qatari government provides funding for Al Jazeera. It has previously dismissed claims that it jeopardized Israel’s security as a “dangerous and ridiculous lie” that endangers its journalists.
It has charged that some of its journalists, including Samer Abu Daqqa and Hamza AlDahdooh, who were both slain in Gaza during the fighting, were purposefully targeted and assassinated by Israeli authorities. According to Israel, it doesn’t target journalists.
Al Jazeera was founded in 1996 by Qatar, which sees the network as a means of raising its status internationally.
Israel was able to retrieve some of the captives taken on October 7 during a Hamas-led offensive on southern Israel that resulted in 1,200 deaths and 253 detainees, according to Israeli accounts. The ceasefire discussions were mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States.
