Qatar’s Al Jazeera television network reported in the early hours of the morning that Israeli armed forces raided its office in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, where they served employees present with a court order to close the facility for 45 days.
A soldier told Palestinian journalist Waleed al-Omari that “there is a (Israeli) judicial decision to shut down Al Jazeera for 45 days,” a scene broadcast live by the television network.
“I ask you to take all your cameras and leave the office immediately,” the soldier added. Footage broadcast by the network shows soldiers heavily armed and with their faces covered. Al Jazeera stressed that no explanation was given for the order to close its office.
🟡 NOW: Israeli soldiers stormed into Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office, guns drawn, during a live broadcast from the occupied West Bank. In full military gear, they broke into the newsroom and ordered an evacuation with a 10-hour deadline, followed by a 45-day closure order.
Al… pic.twitter.com/nn8TkIExq1
— red. (@redstreamnet) September 22, 2024
The chronicle of the controversy
On September 12, the Israeli government announced the cancellation of the press cards of several Al Jazeera contributors, four months after its broadcast was banned and its offices in Israel were closed.
The closure so far has not affected the Qatar network’s work either in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, where its journalists remain present and cover the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
The Israeli armed forces have repeatedly accused Qatari network journalists in the Gaza Strip of being “terrorists”, members of either Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Al Jazeera categorically and angrily rejects the accusation. He has repeatedly complained that the Israeli military is systematically targeting his reporters in the Gaza Strip.
At least 165 Palestinian journalists have been killed in the enclave since the war began, according to Palestinian sources. According to figures from the non-governmental organization Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 116 journalists or media workers—111 Palestinians, 2 Israelis and 3 Lebanese—have been killed since the outbreak of the war on October 7, 2023, to September 20. —, while the investigation continues to determine whether 10 more deaths were related to their work.
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