(CNN) — Al Jazeera’s national closure was ordered by Israel; the Qatar-based news organization referred to this as a “criminal act.”
The government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, decided to close the incitement channel Al Jazeera in Israel, he stated in a post on X.
The decision would be “implemented immediately,” according to Ofir Gendelman, the prime minister’s spokesperson for the Arab world, who stated this on Sunday.
Gendelman stated in an X post that Al Jazeera’s websites will be blocked on the Internet, the network’s “broadcast equipment will be confiscated, the channel’s correspondents will be prevented from working, the channel will be removed from cable and satellite television companies.”
By late Sunday afternoon, Israeli cable providers had stopped transmitting the Al Jazeera networks.
Netanyahu was paraphrased by Gendelman as saying: “Al Jazeera reporters incited IDF soldiers and harmed Israel’s security.” It’s time to banish the Hamas spokesperson from our nation.
CNN was able to capture footage of Israeli police and ISIS agents entering Al Jazeera’s transmitting location in Jerusalem on Sunday.
The Israeli cabinet’s decision, according to Al Jazeera, violated people’s right to information access.
It went on: “We did not let Israel’s repression of the free press—which involved killing and detaining journalists—to distract us from our duties. Since the start of the Gaza war, almost 140 Palestinian journalists have lost their lives defending the truth.
Since October 7, a number of the network’s journalists in Gaza have suffered injuries or lost their lives.
Israeli “false allegations regarding our violation of the professional frameworks governing media work” were refuted by Al Jazeera once more. Human rights organizations and the media were urged to “condemne the Israeli authorities’ repeated attacks on the press and journalists.”
The action was taken a month after Netanyahu threatened to close the nation’s television network in response to the enactment of a broad law that gave the government the authority to outlaw foreign networks that it believed to be a threat to national security.
Early in April, Netanyahu declared on X that he planned to “act immediately in accordance with the new law” to put an end to the outlet’s operations within the nation. Al Jazeera’s operations have been criticized by Netanyahu’s government for a long time, with accusations of anti-Israeli bias.
The new law gives the prime minister and the minister of communications the power to order the temporary shutdown of foreign networks that are present in Israel. Human rights organizations fear that this will have a significant impact on how the conflict in Gaza is covered by world media.
The government’s move was dubbed “a dark day for democracy” and “a cause for concern for all supporters of a free press” by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Israel.
Meanwhile, in a written statement released on Sunday by Omar Shakir, HRW’s Israel and Palestine Director, the organization denounced the choice as a “assault on freedom of the press.”
Shakir stated, “The Israeli government should stop committing its atrocities in Gaza—rather than trying to silence reporting on them.”
This action is a result of Saturday’s negotiations in Cairo, which were intended to result in a cease-fire and hostage agreement.
Technical details of a possible deal have been worked out by the negotiators, but two Israeli sources believe the actual accord might take up to a week to complete. In the ongoing peace talks pertaining to the conflict, Qatar has been instrumental.