Israeli forces raid, shutter Al Jazeera office in Ramallah

The Israeli occupation forces have raided the offices of the Al Jazeera TV channel in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah and ordered the closure of the Qatar-headquartered news network in a blatant violation of press freedom.

Local media reports said heavily armed and masked Israeli soldiers forcefully entered the Al Jazeera offices in the center of Ramallah after midnight on Sunday and informed its employees of the regime’s decision to close it for 45 days.

The sounds of gunfire and teargas were heard during the raid and live footage broadcast by Al Jazeera showed the occupation forcing the office workers to leave immediately.

The Israeli soldiers handed the 45-day closure order to the network’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari early on Sunday without providing a reason for the decision.

The Israeli forces tore down a banner of martyred journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during their raid on the TV channel.

Wearing press attire, the 51-year-old Al Jazeera journalist was murdered by Israeli forces’ live armor-piercing bullet to the head while covering a military raid by the regime’s military on the refugee camp located inside the city of Jenin in the northern part of the occupied West Bank on May 11, 2022.

Later, Abu Akleh’s funeral was also attacked by the occupation forces.

Hamas: Al Jazeera closure aimed at ‘concealing the truth’

Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the political bureau of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement, said the Israeli closure of Al Jazeera offices in Ramallah is a retaliatory measure against its professional role in exposing the occupation’s crimes against Palestinian people.

“Closing Al Jazeera is an attempt to cover up the resistance’s performance in Gaza and Hezbollah’s response and is the culmination of the declared war against journalists with the aim of concealing the truth,” he said.

“We stand in solidarity with Al Jazeera and condemn the decision to close it, and we are confident that the decision will not prevent it from continuing its role and challenging all obstacles.”

Al Jazeera’s Jivara Budeiri said Israeli forces used tear gas in the vicinity of the Al Jazeera bureau and al-Manara Square in the heart of the occupied West Bank city.

She added that Israeli soldiers confiscated their cameras. Budeiri said she feared the military might try to destroy Al Jazeera’s archives, which are stored in the office.

Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim also said the West Bank raid and the closure order come “as no surprise” after the earlier ban on reporting from inside Israel.

“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.

Sunday’s raid comes just months after the Israeli regime banned Al Jazeera from operating inside the occupied territories in May in the wake of its devastating war in the besieged Gaza Strip, which has so far claimed more than 41,000 lives.

That initial closure order was for 45 days but it was renewed and Al Jazeera journalists are still unable to report from Israel.

Expressing concerns about what Israeli soldiers may do to the office after the raid, the bureau chief said, “Targeting journalists this way always aims to erase the truth and prevent people from hearing the truth.”

‘Blatant violation of media freedom’

Reacting to the violent raid, the Government Media Office in Gaza called the Israeli move a “deafening scandal.”

“We call on all media organizations and groups that deal with human rights in the world to condemn this heinous crime … that is a blatant violation of press and media freedom,” it said.

Mostafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said Israel has no right to close any office in Ramallah, which falls in Area A under the security and civil administration of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

“This is the real face of Israel … that claims to be a democracy and claims to be supporting freedom of press,” he said.

Since the start of the war in October last year, Israeli forces have killed 173 journalists, according to a tally from the Government Media Office, with the regime banning international journalists from reporting independently from Gaza.

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