Israel shuts down Al Jazeera's West Bank office
At 3am, heavily armed Israeli soldiers raided the office of Al Jazeera in Ramallah, throwing the team out.
Israeli forces raided Al Jazeera's offices in Ramallah, located in the occupied West Bank, ordering the broadcaster to shut down for 45 days. The raid occurred on Sunday morning during a live broadcast, when armed and masked Israeli soldiers entered the building. Viewers witnessed the troops handing a closure order to the network’s West Bank bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, who read it aloud on air.
Israel had previously raided Al Jazeera's offices in Nazareth and occupied East Jerusalem in May, accusing the Qatar-based network of being a national security threat. "Targeting journalists in this way is always about silencing the truth and preventing people from hearing it," Omari said, as quoted by his employer.
Al Jazeera journalist Mohammad Alsaafin reported that the soldiers also confiscated the last microphone and camera on the street outside, forcing Omari to leave the office. Alsaafin shared on social media that the troops had taken down a poster of Shireen Abu Aqla, an Al Jazeera journalist who was killed during an Israeli raid in the West Bank. The network and eyewitnesses had said that Abu Aqla, a Palestinian-American, was shot by Israeli forces, though Israel initially blamed Palestinian gunfire. Months later, Israel acknowledged there was a "high probability" that one of its soldiers had killed her.
Tensions between Al Jazeera, owned by Qatar, and the Israeli government have long been strained, intensifying after the outbreak of the Gaza war. With foreign journalists barred from entering Gaza, Al Jazeera staff in the region have been among the few able to report directly from the ground. Israel has repeatedly labeled the network as a propagator of terrorism, a claim Al Jazeera denies.
In April, the Israeli parliament passed a law allowing the government to temporarily shut down foreign broadcasters deemed a national security threat during wartime. Such bans last 45 days and can be extended, as demonstrated in Sunday’s raid. Earlier in May, Al Jazeera’s offices in Nazareth and occupied East Jerusalem were also raided.
