By Andrew Mills
DOHA (Reuters) – Israeli forces raided the bureau of media network Al Jazeera in the West Bank city of Ramallah early on Sunday morning, issuing it with a military order to shut down operations, the network said.
The Qatari channel aired live footage of Israeli troops entering the office with their weapons drawn and handing a military court order to Ramallah bureau chief Walid al-Omari forcing the bureau to close for 45 days.
Al-Omari subsequently said the order accused Al Jazeera of “incitement to and support of terrorism” and that the soldiers confiscated the bureau’s cameras before leaving, Al Jazeera reported.
Israeli communications minister Shlomo Karhi confirmed the closure in a statement that called Al Jazeera “the mouthpiece” of Gaza’s Hamas and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah. “We will continue to fight in the enemy channels and ensure the safety of our heroic fighters” he said.
The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate condemned Israel’s move, saying “this arbitrary military decision is considered a new violation against journalistic and media works, which has been exposing the occupation’s crimes against the Palestinian people.”
The Israeli government in May banned Al Jazeera from operating inside Israel, in a move authorised by an Israeli court, and raided a Jerusalem hotel the network used as its office, saying its broadcasts threatened national security.
The network, which says it has no affiliation with militant groups, has provided on-the-ground coverage of Israel’s 11-month long military offensive in Gaza and of a parallel surge in violence in the West Bank.
Unrest has mounted there since the start of the Gaza war, with regular sweeps by Israeli forces that have involved thousands of arrests, regular gun battles between security forces and Palestinian fighters, Palestinian street attacks and attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinian communities.
Al Jazeera, which is funded by the Qatari government, has previously rejected accusations that it harmed Israel’s security as a “dangerous and ridiculous lie” that puts its journalists at risk.
It has accused Israeli authorities of deliberately targeting and killing several of its journalists including Samer Abu Daqqa and Hamza AlDahdooh, both killed in Gaza during the conflict. Israel has said it does not target journalists.
Qatar established Al Jazeera in 1996 and views the network as a way to bolster its global profile.
Qatar, along with Egypt and the United States has mediated ceasefire negotiations under which Israel recovered some of those taken hostage on Oct. 7 in a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, and displaced nearly all of the enclave’s 2.3 million people.
The internationally-recognised Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank under Israeli occupation.
(Reporting by Andrew Mills in Doha, Muhammad Al Gebaly in Cairo, Jana Choukeir in Dubai and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; Writing by Andrew Mills; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Andrew Heavens)
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