This picture taken on May 11, 2022 shows a view of the main headquarters of Qatari news broadcaster Al Jazeera in the capital Doha. Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, 51, was shot dead on May 11 as she covered an Israeli army raid on Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. The Qatar-based TV channel said Israeli forces shot Abu Aqleh deliberately and "in cold blood" while Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said it was "likely" that Palestinian gunfire killed her. (Photo by KARIM JAAFAR / AFP)
Eko Hot Blog reports that Israel has ordered the closure of Al Jazeera in the country.
In a post on X on Sunday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his cabinet voted unanimously to close the TV network’s operation in Israel due to incitement.
“The government headed by me unanimously decided: the incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel,” he said.
Ofir Gendelman, the prime minister’s spokesperson to the Arab world, said Sunday that the decision would be “implemented immediately.”
In a post on X, Gendelman said that the network’s “broadcast equipment will be confiscated, the channel’s correspondents will be prevented from working, the channel will be removed from cable and satellite television companies, and Al Jazeera’s websites will be blocked on the Internet.
Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu
He quoted Netanyahu as saying: “Al Jazeera reporters harmed Israel’s security and incited IDF soldiers. It is time to expel the mouthpiece of Hamas from our country.”
Meanwhile, the Qatar-based news network has condemned the Israeli cabinet’s decision, calling it a “criminal act.”
Al Jazeera argued that the closure of its operations infringes on the human right to access information.
“Israel’s suppression of the free press to cover up its crimes by killing and arresting journalists did not deter us from performing our duty,” the network said.
“More than 140 Palestinian journalists have been martyred for the sake of the truth since the beginning of the war on Gaza.”
Several of the network’s journalists working in Gaza have been injured or killed since October 7, according to CNN.
Al Jazeera also again denied Israel’s “false allegations regarding our violation of the professional frameworks governing media work.”
It, therefore, called on media and human rights organizations “to condemn the Israeli authorities’ repeated attacks on the press and journalists.”
The move comes a month after Netanyahu vowed to shut down the television channel in the country following the passage of a sweeping law allowing the government to ban foreign networks perceived as posing a threat to national security.
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