Al Jazeera said the move was part of Israel’s “ongoing suppression of the free press.” It added: “Israel’s direct targeting and killing of journalists, arrests, intimidation and threats will not deter Al Jazeera from its commitment to cover” the war.
Netanyahu’s government has been highly critical of Al Jazeera for years, and even more so since its war with the Hamas militant group began on Oct. 7 after the group’s atrocity in Israel. The images of human suffering in Gaza that Al Jazeera broadcasts have undermined Israel’s campaign against Hamas by eroding international support for its war.
Israel also strongly objects to the editorial approaches that Al Jazeera takes toward the conflict as well as its use of statements by Hamas.
Al Jazeera objects to Israel’s targeting of journalists, and claims that more than 140 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the start of the war. During a previous bombardment of Gaza in 2021, Israel flattened an office block where several media outlets had their operations, including Al Jazeera and AP. Nobody was hurt.
In 2022, the Israeli Defence Forces shot dead one of Al Jazeera’s best-known reporters, Shireen Abu Akleh. Israeli ministers initially cast confusion over who killed the journalist, but later accepted responsibility and apologized, though Israel has refused to cooperate with FBI and International Criminal Court investigations into her death. During the current war, a shrine to Abu Akleh was bulldozed.
The Foreign Press Association, which represents journalists who work in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank, condemned Israel’s most recent legal clampdown on Al Jazeera.
“With this decision, Israel joins a dubious club of authoritarian governments to ban the station,” it said. “This is a dark day for the media. This is a dark day for democracy.”
Al Jazeera has the largest established presence in Gaza of any international outlet. Israel allows foreign journalists to access Gaza only through strictly controlled press trips that it coordinates.
