Israel shuts down al Jazeera office, imposes publication ban on Qatari news network

The order that includes confiscating broadcast equipment, preventing the broadcast of the channel’s reports and blocking its websites, was issued amid the ongoing Qatari mediation efforts to end the war on the Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera was reportedly cleared off Israel’s main cable provider in the hours after the order.

For its part, Al Jazeera has strongly denounced the Israeli government’s decision to close its news operations in the occupied lands as a “criminal act” and warned that the country’s suppression of the free press “stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law.”

“Al Jazeera Media Network strongly condemns and denounces this criminal act that violates human rights and the basic right to access of information”, the network said in a statement stressing its right to continue to provide news and information to its global audiences.

The statement comes after Netanyahu’s cabinet voted unanimously to close Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel, weeks after Israel’s parliament passed a law allowing the temporary closure of foreign broadcasters considered to be a threat to national security during the months-long genocidal war on Gaza.

Following the decision, plain-clothes Israeli officers raided Al Jazeera’s office in Occupied Jerusalem.

The network has reported the Israeli war on Gaza nonstop since the al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas launched its cross-border operation on October 7, 2023 and has maintained 24-hour coverage of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza that has killed and wounded members of its own staff.