Qatari television channel Al Jazeera announced that Israeli forces raided its offices in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, on Sunday and issued a closure order for 45 days. An Israeli soldier told editor-in-chief Walid al Omari: “There is a court decision to close Al Jazeera for 45 days,” the channel reported, citing the conversation broadcast live.
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“I ask you to take all cameras and leave the office right now,” the officer added.
The footage showed heavily armed and hooded troops entering the headquarters. Al Omari said the closure order accused the network of “inciting and supporting terrorism.”
The Qatari media outlet condemned the measure in a statement, in which it “vehemently condemns and denounces this criminal act.” “The raid on the office and the seizure of our equipment is not only an attack on Al Jazeera, but an affront to press freedom and the very principles of journalism,” the statement added.
The Israeli army, for its part, defended the closure, saying that the chain endangered “security and public order, both in the area and in the entire State of Israel.”
As detailed in a publication, the closure was signed after a legal opinion and an evaluation by the intelligence services “determined that the offices were used to incite terror.” [y] support terrorist activities.”
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Foreign Ministry on Sunday condemned the Israeli raid, denouncing a “flagrant violation” of press freedom.
The closure of Al Jazeera’s offices “confirms the efforts of the occupation” [israelĂ] for disrupting the work of the media when it comes to disseminating [informaciones sobre] “the violations of the occupation against the Palestinian people,” Mohamed Abu al Rub, director of the media office of the Palestinian Authority government, told AFP.
The Hamas-run Gaza government’s press service also criticised the move, calling it a “scandal”. The move is the latest Israeli action against Al Jazeera, after the Israeli government announced last week that it was revoking the press credentials of the channel’s journalists in the country, four months after banning the channel from operating on its territory.
Until Sunday, the shutdown had not affected broadcasts from the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, where Al Jazeera is covering Israel’s war with Hamas. The Israeli military has frequently accused journalists from the Qatari network of being “terrorist agents” in Gaza affiliated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
Al Jazeera denies the allegations and says Israel systematically targets its employees in the Gaza Strip, where four of them have been killed since the start of the war.
AFP AGENCY
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