The IDF on Sunday conducted a raid on the offices of the Qatari satellite news network Al Jazeera in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority, instructing the bureau to cease operations. This action is part of an expanding initiative by Israel aimed at the broadcaster as it issues biased, anti-Israel reports on the ongoing wars in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
Burnol moment for Liber@ls!
Israeli forces raided Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah, West Bank, enforcing 45-day shutdown of bureau.
Heavily armed Israeli soldiers entered building & delivered closure order to network’s bureau chief Walid al-Omari, ordering removal of all cameras… pic.twitter.com/2uC6cIC7AL
— BhikuMhatre (@MumbaichaDon) September 22, 2024
Armed IDF soldiers entered the office and told a reporter live on air (see above) that the studio and the offices would be shut down for 45 days, ordering the staff out immediately. The network later aired images of soldiers tearing down a banner on an Al Jazeera office balcony with an image of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Arab-American journalist shot dead in May 2022.
Minutes later, an Israeli officer told Al Jazeera’s local bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, “There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days. I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment.”
Here’s an AI-generated image of the “raid”:
اقتحام مكتب #الجزيرة في #رام_الله و إغلاقه..لكم التعليق! pic.twitter.com/beTymDmXFZ
— عثمان آي فرح (@ayfaraho) September 22, 2024
The shutdown followed the May expulsion of Al Jazeera’s staff and operations from eastern Jerusalem. Israelis cannot access the Al Jazeera website online, although they can still watch the Qatari terrorist channel’s live broadcast on YouTube.
The official PA news agency WAFA reported that “heavily armed and masked Israeli soldiers forcibly entered the Al Jazeera offices shortly after midnight.”
They were not heavily armed and they certainly were not masked. Even the AI said so.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned the Israeli action, calling it a new aggression against journalism and media outlets. The syndicate urged all relevant organizations and institutions concerned to swiftly denounce this military decision and work to halt its implementation. The syndicate also expressed solidarity with Al Jazeera and its journalists, stating that it is “prepared to offer its resources and support to assist the channel’s staff during this challenging time.”
A sandwich and a nice cup of tea, maybe?
A 2022 investigation by media watchdog HonestReporting revealed that 16 major news outlets cited Al Jazeera 116 times in stories related to Israel, often without acknowledging the Qatari media organization’s potential bias. Al Jazeera boasts a global audience exceeding 430 million viewers.
Recently, Al Jazeera published a controversial story alleging that Israeli soldiers had sexually assaulted PA Arab women at Shifa Hospital during the IDF’s operation against Hamas forces. The outlet later retracted this unsubstantiated claim without public acknowledgment, attempting to remove it discreetly.
In July, the IDF uncovered that an Al Jazeera journalist was moonlighting as a Hamas commander. Information retrieved from a laptop located in Gaza indicated that the reporter, Mohammed Wishah, occupied a prominent position in Hamas’s anti-tank division, where he instructed young terrorists on the operation of anti-tank missiles and the creation of incendiary devices. Another Al Jazeera journalist, Ismail Abu Omar, was seen accompanying Hamas militants into Israel on October 7. In the footage he shared from within Kibbutz Nir Oz, he lauded the Hamas operatives executing the attacks, stating: “The friends have progressed, may God bless.”
