Netanyahu vows to take “immediate action” in banning Al Jazeera

Israel’s parliament passed a bill on April 1st that gives senior ministers the authority to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting in the country, a move which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to put into “immediate action,” according to the National News and agencies

The law passed by 70 votes to 10, allowing the government to ban foreign media deemed harmful to national security and to close their broadcasting offices in Israel. The bill had already passed its first parliamentary hurdle last month.

Netanyahu’s Likud party said he asked “to make sure that the law to close Al Jazeera will be approved this evening.”

In an X post made after the law was passed, Netanyahu referred to Al Jazeera as “the sofar of Hamas,” accusing the outlet of having been an active participant on October 7th. 

“The terrorist channel Al Jazeera will no longer broadcast from Israel,” he wrote. “I intend to act immediately in accordance with the new law to stop the channel’s activity.”

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Al Jazeera has been consistently targeted by the Israeli government. In January, Israel claimed that an Al Jazeera staff journalist and freelancer killed in a Gaza airstrike had been “terror operatives.” In February, it accused another journalist — wounded in a separate strike — of being “deputy company commander” with Hamas.

Al Jazeera has fiercely denied these claims and, in turn, accused Israel of systematically targeting its employees.

In December, cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza. The same strike also wounded the channel’s bureau chief in the enclave, Wael Al Dahdouh, whose wife and two children were killed in an October strike. His son Hamza Dahdouh, another Al Jazeera journalist, was killed in another strike in January.

On March 18th, network broadcaster Ismail Alghoul was kidnapped — alongside five others — by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) before being released twelve hours later. 

“The Network emphasises that this targeting serves as an intimidation tactic against journalists to deter them from reporting the horrific crimes committed by the occupation forces against innocent civilians in Gaza,” the network wrote at the time. 

 White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Netanyahu’s move to ban the media outlet “concerning.”

 READ: Gaza-based journalist Bayan Abusultan is alive

“We believe in the freedom of the press, it is critical,” she told reporters. “It is critically important and the United States supports the critically important work of journalists around the world.”

Comparatively, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that while the Biden administration has “not always agreed with” Al Jazeera’s coverage, it recognised its vital work in Gaza.

“Much of what we know about what has happened in Gaza is because of reporters who are there doing their jobs, including reporters from Al Jazeera,” he said.

Since the war began, 90 Palestinian journalists have been killed and 16 more have been arrested, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). 

On February 15th CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg told Al Jazeera that Palestinian victims account for nearly 75 percent of all journalists killed worldwide. Additionally, Israel’s war on Gaza has been declared the deadliest for media workers, with the most journalists killed in one year in a single location. 

“This war is unprecedented in terms of the threat to journalists,” she said. 

The National News and agencies

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