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SvennoJ 6 days ago
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‘Israel does not want world to see’

Al Jazeera is reporting from Amman because it has been banned by Israel.
Israel’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, released a post on X saying that as promised and after much pressure, the Israeli government and the military alike closed the Al Jazeera office, saying that they were mouthpieces for both Hamas and Hezbollah.

The claims that the Israeli government has brought against Al Jazeera, of course, are all false with no basis or backing to them whatsoever. The Israeli military, when releasing a statement, said that the office was used to incite and support “terror”.

I mean, imagine that is coming from the Israeli military, who conducted this raid with guns drawn, weapons and assault rifles into our office in Ramallah, saying that the network was supporting armed groups and fighters, which, of course, is false.

Israel has made it difficult for Al Jazeera to report as a whole across the entirety of Israel and the occupied territories. There are checkpoints all across the occupied West Bank. There is no freedom of movement, so it’s incredibly difficult to try and get the story out there.

But when the teams are on the ground, they do an incredible job of showing the viewer the picture. And Israel, of course, does not want the world to see the crimes that are being committed against the Palestinian people.


US media watchdog calls on Israel to ‘stop harassing’ Al Jazeera

The Committee to Protect Journalists has 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.

“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 office closure part of Israeli ‘policy to try and stop free reporting’: International Federation of Journalists

Tim Dawson, deputy general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, has said that the Israeli military closure of Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah in the West Bank is “utterly shocking and “comes as part of a long drawn-out policy to try and stop free reporting”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from London, Dawson said: “There have been journalists who have been locked out of the Gaza Strip. There’s been the targeting of journalists in Gaza. There’s been suppression of critical media within Israel, and the attempt to stop Al Jazeera from reporting is atrocious on so many levels.”

“It’s atrocious that they sent combat troops to deal with journalists who had nothing but microphones and notebooks. That’s clearly designed to terrify people. Why it was done at three in the morning, I suspect because they thought it would terrify people even more,” he said.

“This is the worst possible behaviour from a country that claims to be a defender of free speech. It’s clear evidence of a determined policy to quell any kind of criticism.”


Israeli raid of Al Jazeera Bureau ‘disgraceful’

Israeli analyst Ori Goldberg says the raid and closure of Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, by his country’s government is a sign of “desperation” and “utterly disgraceful”.

“Israel did the same in Gaza. It is afraid of showing the world the situation in the territories it claims to control,” he told Al Jazeera.

According to Goldberg, there are two major reasons for this – the scope of the devastation that Israel “sows” in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and its lack of control in both.

“The Israeli apparatus for the control of the Palestinian territories is disintegrating,” he said. “The lack of control is very much felt constantly in the West Bank, it’s certainly felt in Gaza, and I think the constant presence of critical journalists would no doubt show this to the world.”


Israel’s ‘most moral army’ claim now an international punchline

In response to a question about whether Israel’s actions at Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah are counterproductive, journalist Ryan Grim says Israel does not have much “credibility on the international stage left to lose”.

“Going into their calculations, they are already saying we have lost this mantle of the ‘most moral army’ and ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’. Those have become punchlines internationally, rather than talking points anyone takes seriously,” Grim, co-founder of the news outlet Drop Site, told Al Jazeera.

Grim described the raid in Ramallah as a “gloves off” situation.

“Sending in armed troops to drag journalists out of their headquarters creates the kind of images that would make any country calling itself a democracy ashamed. “The fact that not only were they willing to do this, but it appears did so partly for the production of those images, suggests they are beyond the realm of worrying about the PR of how it looks,” he said.


Irish president condemns Israel’s closure of Al Jazeera’s office

The Republic of Ireland’s President Michael Higgins says Israel’s shutting down of Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah was an “outrageous” move, our correspondent Gabriel Elizondo reports.

“I strongly condemn it. I think it’s outrageous. And I would like to say … it tells you a very, very great thing, their refusal to have Al Jazeera operate in Israel,” Higgins said during a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting.