To silence Al Jazeera from reporting on its atrocities in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu Government issues an order to close down the network in Israel

 Groundxero | May 5, 2024

Israel’s Cabinet on May 5 banned Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite news network—the sole international media outlet providing 24/7 live coverage from Gaza—from operating in the country.

The Jerusalem offices of Al Jazeera were raided after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the decision on X that his government had voted unanimously to shut down the local Al Jazeera offices. “The time has come to eject Hamas’ mouthpiece from our country,” Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address.

The order to cease broadcasting the channel, close its offices in Jerusalem, confiscate equipment, block website, came on Sunday, after the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, recently voted 71-10 in favour of a law empowering the Israeli communications minister to ban foreign news organisations from working in Israel and to confiscate their equipment.

“If you’re watching this… then Al Jazeera has been banned in Israel,” correspondent Imran Khan said in a pre-recorded report from occupied East Jerusalem preempting the Israeli Cabinet’s unanimous vote to close the network in Israel.

The official statement from the Israeli government said that the measure to ban Al Jazeera in the country will include closing Al Jazeera’s offices in Israel, confiscating broadcast equipment, cutting off the channel from cable and satellite companies and blocking its websites.

In a statement on X, Al Jazeera said, “We condemn and denounce this criminal act by Israel that violates the human right to access information.” Israeli officials justified the move saying Al Jazeera was a threat to national security. “The incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel,” Netanyahu posted on social media after the unanimous cabinet vote. Al Jazeera called Israeli accusations a “dangerous and ridiculous lie” and said that it puts its journalists on the ground at risk.

The order is unlikely to affect Al Jazeera’s ability to operate in Gaza or the illegally occupied Palestinian territories. Al Jazeera has been continuously airing its ground reports from Gaza, since October 7, when Israel launched its genocidal war in Gaza in retaliation to Hamas attack. The network’s office in Gaza has been bombed by Israel and two journalists from Al Jazeera — Samer Abudaqa and Hamza AlDahdooh— were killed during airstrikes by the Israeli army. Al Jazeera accused Israel of deliberately killing its journalists reporting on-ground from Gaza, targeting even their family members. Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter, and grandson were killed in a separate Israeli strike.

Israel’s army has so far killed over 100 journalists in Gaza, the vast majority of them Palestinians, in the last seven months, in what the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and others say are often intentional targets of not only media workers but also their families.

The Foreign Press Association, representing foreign media reporting from Israel, condemned the decision accusing Israel of joining a “dubious club of authoritarian governments”. “We urge the government to reverse this harmful step and uphold its commitment to freedom of the press — including outlets whose coverage it may not like… This is a dark day for the media. This is a dark day for democracy,” it said in a statement.

Meanwhile, on Friday—World Press Freedom Day—Palestinian journalists covering the war on Gaza were awarded this year’s UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize after being recommended by an international jury of media professionals.