Israeli PRIME Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed to impose a ban on broadcasts in Israel of the Al Jazeera news channel, using the authority lawmakers recently voted to grant.
This ban has the potential to escalate the conflict between the Israeli government and the Qatar-based channel, which has intensified during Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
“The terrorist channel Al Jazeera will no longer broadcast from Israel. “I intend to act immediately in accordance with the new law to stop the channel’s activities,” Netanyahu said on X, formerly Twitter.
Al Jazeera said “this latest action was carried out as part of a series of systematic Israeli attacks to silence Al Jazeera”.
It said this included the killing of a journalist before the October 7 attack by Hamas in Israel, and the deaths of two other network correspondents as well as the bombing of its offices during the Gaza war that followed.
US White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said, “if this is true, then actions like this are worrying.”
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The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the law underlying Netanyahu’s pledge gives Israel the authority to shut down all foreign outlets operating within its borders.
“This contributes to a climate of self-censorship and hostility towards the press, a trend that has increased since the Israel-Gaza war began,” the group’s statement added.
Israel claimed in January that an Al Jazeera staff journalist and a freelancer killed in an airstrike in Gaza were a “terror operation”.
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The following month they said another journalist for the channel, who was injured in a separate attack, was a “deputy company commander” in Hamas.
Al Jazeera strongly denied Israel’s accusations and accused Israel of systematically targeting Al Jazeera employees in the Gaza Strip.
The law passed by a wide margin
Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in the Palestinian territories, Wael al-Dahdouh, was also injured, in an Israeli attack in December that killed the network’s cameraman.
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His wife, their two children and a grandson were killed in the bombing of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza in October, while his eldest son was an Al Jazeera staff journalist who was killed in January when an attack targeted a car in Rafah.
Al Jazeera said in a statement Netanyahu had launched a “frantic” and “shameful” campaign of accusations against the network.
The TV channel said it “condemns these statements as ridiculous and dangerous lies” and vowed to continue its “courageous” coverage of the war.
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The law at the heart of Netanyahu’s move to ban Al Jazeera passed on Monday by 70 votes to 10. It gives ministers the authority to ban the broadcast of content from foreign channels deemed to be a security threat.
The law also allows Israel to order the closure of outlet offices.
Al Jazeera bills itself as “the Arab world’s first independent news channel”, and began broadcasting in Doha in 1996.
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Qatar is also the headquarters of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Al Jazeera said it has more than 70 bureaus worldwide, with more than 3,000 employees from more than 95 countries and reaching more than 430 million homes.
Tensions between Israel and Al Jazeera have increased since the conflict erupted on October 7.
The bloodiest Gaza war ever began with an unprecedented Hamas offensive that resulted in some 1,160 deaths in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign, aimed at destroying Hamas, has killed at least 32,845 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. (AFP/Z-3)
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