According to Al-Jazeera, Israeli forces stormed the office of the Arab television station in Ramallah in the West Bank and ordered the station to be temporarily closed. “There is a court ruling for the closure of Al-Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier said in a live report by the station on Sunday. “I ask you to take all cameras and leave the office immediately,” he reportedly said.
Pictures showed heavily armed and masked forces storming the office. According to Al Jazeera, the soldiers did not give any reasons for the broadcast ban.
Al-Jazeera reports regularly from the Gaza Strip
GAl-Jazeera is already banned from broadcasting in Israel. Last week, the Israeli government announced that it would revoke the press cards of Al Jazeera journalists. In June, Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi described Al Jazeera as “a mouthpiece of terrorism in the service of Hamas.”
In July, the station’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip, Ismail al-Ghoul, and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi were killed in an Israeli air strike while reporting on the Al-Shati refugee camp. According to the Israeli army, al-Ghoul was involved in the major attack by the radical Islamist Hamas on Israel on October 7. The station denied this.
Since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera has been reporting regularly from there on Israel’s actions. The station’s office in the city of Gaza had already been bombed, killing two journalists.
In the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, the situation has worsened significantly since the start of the war between Israel and the radical Islamic Hamas in the Gaza Strip. According to Palestinian sources, at least 679 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since the start of the war.
According to Israeli sources, at least 24 Israelis, including security forces, were killed in Palestinian attacks in the area during the same period. (AFP)
