Al Jazeera Qatari channel announced this morning, Sunday, that the Israeli occupation forces stormed its office in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and ordered its closure for 45 days “under a military order”, then confiscated all the devices and documents in the office.
The channel broadcast live footage of the occupation forces storming the office and handing one of its employees a military order to close before disrupting the broadcast.
Al Jazeera reported that an Israeli officer informed its office director, Walid Al-Omari, of “a judicial decision to close Al Jazeera’s office for 45 days”, and broadcasted the closure process live.
The occupation forces confiscated all the devices and documents in the channel’s office after storming and closing it, and sent trucks to confiscate and transport the filming and broadcasting equipment and documents from the office, according to what Al Jazeera’s website stated, and it also indicated that the forces fired gas bombs around the besieged channel’s office and
Al-Manara roundabout.
“I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment,” the officer said, as heavily armed Israeli soldiers wearing masks entered the office.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned the Israeli move in a statement, saying it “considers this arbitrary military decision a new aggression against journalistic work and the media outlets that have been exposing the occupation’s crimes against the Palestinian people.”
The government media office in Gaza also condemned the storming of Al Jazeera’s office, calling it “a resounding scandal and a flagrant violation of freedom of the press.”
Last week, the occupation authorities withdrew the accreditation cards of Al Jazeera journalists in the occupied territories, four months after the channel was banned from operating inside Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has been locked in a long-running dispute with Al Jazeera, which has escalated since the outbreak of the occupation’s war on Gaza on October
7.
Source: National Iraqi News Agency