Footage from Al Jazeera’s live broadcast also showed Israeli occupation forces tearing down a large poster of the network’s slain journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh.
Israeli occupation forces have raided Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and ordered it to shut down for 45 days in a pre-dawn on Sunday in yet another flagrant attack on the Qatar-based network.
Al Jazeera was broadcasting live when heavily armed Israeli soldiers broke into the network’s office and handed its bureau chief, Walid Al-Omari, the order to shut it down over allegations of “incitement to and support of terrorism”.
Under the order, Al Jazeera is forced to completely cease its operations for 45 days, a period which the Israeli government can renew.
The latest raid came four months after the Israeli government shut down Al Jazeera’s office in Jerusalem and banned it from broadcasting for an initial period of 45 days, which it has since renewed.
Al-Omari and Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Ramallah, Givara Budeiri, were present at the Ramallah office before they were forced to leave the building and blocked from taking their belongings.
Budeiri said all cameras were confiscated and Israeli forces used tear gas in the building’s vicinity. Al Jazeera’s correspondents on the ground said they feared the Israeli forces would destroy the network’s archives.
Al Jazeera English’s correspondent in the West Bank, Nida Ibrahim, told the network over the phone that while the latest closure order was no surprise, it came sooner than expected.
“We’ve heard Israeli officials threatening to close down the bureau. We’ve heard the government discussing this, asking the military ruler in the occupied West Bank to close down and shut down the channel. But we [had] not been expecting it to happen today,” Ibrahim said.
Footage from Al Jazeera’s live broadcast also showed Israeli occupation forces tearing down a large poster of the network’s slain journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh.
Widely known as “the voice of Palestinians”, Abu Akleh was shot and killed in May 2022 by Israeli forces while covering a raid in Jenin, despite wearing a visible blue press vest and a helmet.
Numerous investigations proved that Abu Akleh was deliberately killed.
A ‘retaliatory measure’ against Palestinians
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative party, told Al Jazeera that Israel had no legal right to shut down the Ramallah office given its location in an area that is under the Palestinian Authority’s jurisdiction.
“This is the real face of Israel, a country that claims to be a democracy and claims to be supporting freedom of press,” he said.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s government media office slammed the latest Israeli decision as “barbaric”.
“The occupation’s closure of Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah and preventing it from working is a barbaric decision and a scandal for the occupation,” the statement said.
Hamas also condemned the Israeli decision, describing it as “a retaliatory measure against its professional role in exposing the occupation’s crimes” against Palestinians.
“The closure of Al Jazeera’s office is the culmination of the declared war against journalists who are subjected to systematic Zionist terrorism aimed at hiding the truth,” Izzat Al-Risheq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said.
Journalists have been Israel’s primary target for exposing the crimes committed on the ground in the Gaza Strip. Since October 7, Israel has killed at least 173 journalists in the besieged enclave.
The journalists are among at least 41,391 Palestinians killed in the Strip since October 7.
In response to Al Jazeera’s coverage of Israeli violations and occupation policies against Palestinians, Israel has targeted and killed the network’s journalists and their families on several occasions.
On July 31, Israel killed Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami Al-Rifi in a targeted airstrike in Al-Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
On February 13, Israeli occupation forces targeted Al Jazeera’s correspondent Ismail Abu Omar and cameraman Ahmed Mattar in an air strike in northern Rafah. Abu Omar is currently in Doha for treatment after his leg was amputated.
Several members of the network’s Gaza bureau chief and prominent journalist Wael Dahdouh were also killed by Israel.
On October 25, 2023, Dahdouh’s wife, 15-year-old son, seven-year-old daughter and infant grandson were killed in an Israeli air strike in the south, despite Israel announcing the area to be a safe zone before the attack.
Dahdouh, now in Doha, then survived a missile strike on December 15 in Khan Younis, where Al Jazeera’s cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa, succumbed to his injuries after being left to bleed for six hours.
Israel then killed Dahdouh’s eldest son, Hamza, on January 7 in a direct missile strike that targeted a car with journalists in Khan Younis.
A month before that, 22 family members of Moamen Al Sharafi, a correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic, were killed in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
