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Israeli forces raid, close Al Jazeera’s West Bank office
Israeli forces raided Al Jazeera West Bank office on September 22 during a live broadcast. (Screenshot- Al Jazeera English-YouTube)
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on Israeli authorities to stop harassing and obstructing Al Jazeera after armed Israeli forces raided the Qatari broadcaster’s office in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah during a live broadcast early Sunday morning, ordered its closure for 45 days, and forced its staff to leave.
“CPJ is deeply alarmed by Israel’s closure of Al Jazeera’s office in the occupied West Bank, just months after it shuttered Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel after deeming it a threat to national security,” said CPJ’s program director, Carlos Martínez de la Serna, in New York. “Israel’s efforts to censor Al Jazeera severely undermine the public’s right to information on a war that has upended so many lives in the region. Al Jazeera’s journalists must be allowed to report at this critical time, and always.”
Al Jazeera aired footage of the raid, during which soldiers confiscated documents and equipment from the office. Soldiers seized the microphone from Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari while he was live on air with correspondent Givara Budeiri outside the building. Al Jazeera said the forces also removed a poster of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American correspondent murdered by Israeli forces in 2022, from the building.
In May, the Israeli cabinet voted to ban Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel after the country’s parliament passed a law authorizing the shutdown of foreign channels’ broadcasts if the content was deemed to be a threat to the country’s security during the ongoing war.
Until Sunday the broadcaster had continued to operate from Ramallah, a Palestinian city in the West Bank under Israeli military occupation; it still operates in Gaza, where the Israeli military has killed numerous Al Jazeera staff and freelancers since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023. – Media release