Israeli forces storm Al Jazeera bureau in Ramallah, shut down operations

Israeli soldiers have raided the Al Jazeera office in the occupied West Bank and ordered the bureau to shut down amid a widening campaign targeting the Doha-based broadcaster.

Al Jazeera aired footage of Israeli troops storming its bureau in Ramallah on Sunday and ordering the office to be shut for 45 days. This follows an order issued in May that saw Israeli police raid Al Jazeera’s premises in occupied East Jerusalem, seizing equipment, preventing its broadcasts in Israel and blocking its websites.

The network later aired footage of Israeli troops tearing down a banner on a balcony used by the Al Jazeera office in Ramallah. Al Jazeera said it bore an image of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist shot dead by Israeli forces in May 2022.

“There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s local bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, in the live footage. “I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment.”

Al-Omari said Israeli troops began confiscating documents and equipment in the bureau, as tear gas and gunshots could be seen and heard in the area. Speaking later to the AP, al-Omari said the Israeli military cited laws dating back to the British Mandate of Palestine to support its closure order.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate denounced the Israeli raid and order.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the raid was “deeply concerning”.

“Journalists must be protected and allowed to work freely,” it said.

The network has reported on Israel’s war on Gaza that has killed 41,000 people. Al Jazeera has maintained 24-hour coverage in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s grinding ground offensive that has killed and wounded members of the network’s staff.

Since the start of the war in October last year, Israeli forces have killed 173 journalists, according to a tally from the Government Media Office. International journalists have not been allowed to report independently from Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s Ismail al-Ghoul and Samer Abudaqa are among the journalists killed.

Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Ismail Abu Omar was also severely injured in an Israeli strike in February.