Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu said he will close Al Jazeera in Israel because he believes it spreads dangerous ideas. The parliament passed a law to make this possible.
Netanyahu promised to increase Israel’s conflict with Al Jazeera. This may also make tensions with Qatar, which owns the channel, worse. This comes at a time when Qatar is trying to help stop the fighting in Gaza. Neither Qatar nor the broadcaster said anything right away.
Israel and Al Jazeera have not gotten along for a while. Israel says Al Jazeera is not fair to them. Relationships between two parties became very bad almost two years ago when a journalist from Al Jazeera, Shireen Abu Akleh, was killed during a military operation by Israel in the West Bank.
The journalist was famous in the Arab world for talking about Israel, and the channel said Israel purposely killed her. Israel said they didn’t do it and that the Palestinian woman was probably accidentally shot by Israeli soldiers.
The relations got even worse after Israel started a war against Hamas in October. In 2007, a militant group attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others.
In December, an Israeli attack killed a cameraman from Al Jazeera while he was covering the war in southern Gaza. The leader of the news team in Gaza, Wael Dahdouh, got hurt in the attack too.
The network said Israel is responsible for killing Dahdouh’s son in an attack in January. Hamza Dahdouh was working for Al Jazeera when a car he was in got hit by a strike. The army said that Hamza Dahdouh was in Islamic Jihad, a militant group in October. 7 attacks by Hamas.
Last October, Wael Dahdouh lost his wife, daughter, another son, and his grandson in an Israeli attack. The TV showed Dahdouh going into the hospital and looking very sad as he looked at his dead son. Israel has not told us who they were aiming to hit with that attack.
Al Jazeera is one of the few news outlets from other countries that stayed in Gaza during the war. They showed videos of airstrikes, crowded hospitals, and said that Israel was killing a lot of people. Israel says that Al Jazeera is working with Hamas.
Al Jazeera caused damage to Israel’s security and was involved in the October incident. 7 attacks where a lot of people were killed and angry fighting started against Israeli soldiers. “It’s time to get rid of Hamas in our country,” Netanyahu said on X, which used to be called Twitter.
He said he was going to start following the new law right away. “He said Al Jazeera won’t show news from Israel anymore. ”
Al Jazeera cannot be watched in some countries in the Middle East because their governments have stopped it.
Egypt stopped Al Jazeera from operating in their country in 2013. It started taking strong action after the military took control in 2013 and removed a government led by the Muslim Brotherhood group. Egypt thinks the Brotherhood is a bad group and said Qatar and Al Jazeera help them.
In Washington, a person from the State Department called Matthew Miller said the US may not always like what Al Jazeera reports, but still thinks their work is important.
“We help the independent news organizations all over the world,” he said. “We know about what’s happening in Gaza because there are reporters there, including ones from Al Jazeera, telling us what’s going on. ”
Israel has said it might close Al Jazeera before, but it hasn’t actually done it. Monday’s law did not close the station right away, but it allows officials to do it later after getting permission from legal and security officials. Any order will only be valid until July 31 or the end of the war in Gaza.
Israel’s Minister of Communications, Shlomo Karhi, said he plans to go ahead with the closure. He said Al Jazeera has been working as a tool for spreading biased information for Hamas, by promoting using weapons against Israel.
“He said it’s impossible for a media outlet, which has press credentials from the Government Press Office and offices in Israel, to act against us from within, especially during wartime. ”
His office announced that they want to stop the channel from being shown in Israel and stop it from working in the country. The rule will not affect the West Bank or Gaza.
Walid Al-Omari, who is in charge of the Al Jazeera office in the area, said on Monday night that they have not received any communication from the Israeli authorities. “But it’s obvious that they will make the decision in a few days,” he told The Associated Press.
However, penalizing the channel might be dangerous. Qatar has been helping to make peace between Israel and Hamas. It helped arrange and support a week-long break from fighting in November, and has been holding discussions on and off for weeks to try to arrange another break from fighting.
Israel may be trying to push Qatar to make Hamas agree to something by focusing on Al Jazeera. In the past, Netanyahu said Qatar is not doing enough. However, this could also make Qatar unhappy. Qatar is a rich country in the Gulf with a lot of oil and gas. It is one of the only countries that has power over Hamas.
During the war, press freedom groups have criticized Israel a lot. The Committee to Protect Journalists says that 90 Palestinian journalists and two Israeli journalists have died in the war. Israel has not allowed foreign journalists to go to Gaza on their own to report on the war. The army let a few journalists go into Gaza for short visits with strict control and protection from the military.
people with disabilities to live in dignity and equality. ” Shechter believes the law is unfair and does not treat people with disabilities fairly.