Israel Shuts Down Al Jazeera Office in Ramallah
With heavy guns, Israeli soldiers barged into Al Jazeera office in Ramallah and ordered it shut down. The raid was in the early hours of the morning, Sunday.
Troops raided the office with one soldier reading out an order to Al Jazeera Bureau Chief Waleed Al Omari.
The soldier said: “This is an order from the court to close the Al Jazeera office for a period of 45 days and I ask you to take all your belongings and cameras and leave this office now.”
Al Omari then asked to see the order and read it out on TV live amidst a force of Israeli soldiers. It stated this is: “…an order concerning the closure of the office of the Al Jazeera Channel for a period of 45 days, and this is a military order issued by the leader of the central region of the Israeli army.”
Al Omari added: “It orders us to leave now and immediately this headquarters and take our personal belongings including the cameras…”
The action of the closure by the Israeli army soon became trending on the social media with a tweet from the Quds News Network stating “Israeli occupation forces withdraw from the center of Ramallah after closing Al Jazeera office and confiscating its live footage equipment.
Full report was made of the closure on Al Jazeera English with Al Omari saying the Israeli military’s closure order accused the network of “incitement to and support of terrorism”.
The report added: Al Jazeera’s Jivara Budeiri said Israeli forces fired tear gas in the vicinity of the Al Jazeera bureau and the Manara Roundabout in the heart of the occupied West Bank city. She added that Israeli soldiers confiscated their cameras. Budeiri said she feared the military may try to destroy Al Jazeera’s archives, which are stored in the office.
Israel always wanted to shut down Al Jazeera particularly after its coverage of the war on Gaza following 7 October, 2023. Last May the Benjamin Netanyahu government made a decision to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting in Israel and shutdown its office in East Jerusalem.
This was a decision that was condemned by the Al Jazeera management but to no avail.
The recent decision on Al Jazeera Ramallah office is being called as a “deafening scandal” by the Government Media Office in Gaza and has called in all international organizations to condemn the latest move.
Ever since the Gaza slaughter Israel has killed 173 journalists mainly in the enclave to prevent reporting on the Israeli army’s atrocities that resulted in the killing of 41,400 people, mostly women and children and injury of 95,700 people.
Dr Asmar is a writer based in Amman and blogs at www.crossfirearabia.com
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