\n Al Jazeera went off-air in Israel Sunday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government decided to shut it down following a long-running feud, a move the Qatar-based channel decried as \"criminal\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Netanyahu declared on X that the government had \"unanimously decided: the incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The government said the order was initially valid for 45 days, with the possibility of an extension.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hours later, screens carrying Al Jazeera's Arabic and English channels went blank, apart from a message in Hebrew saying they had \"been suspended in Israel\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The shutdown does not apply to the Israeli-occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip, from which Al Jazeera still broadcasts live on Israel's war with Hamas.\n<\/p>\n
\n Al Jazeera condemned Israel's decision as \"criminal\", charging on X that it \"violates the human right to access information\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The Foreign Press Association said shutting down Al Jazeera in Israel was \"a dark day for the media (and) a dark day for democracy\", and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate slammed the move as \"a war crime\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The decision came after Israel's parliament last month voted overwhelmingly to pass a new national security law granting top ministers the power to ban broadcasts by foreign channels and close their offices if they are deemed a national security threat.\n<\/p>\n
\n Shortly after the law was passed, Netanyahu singled out Al Jazeera, which bills itself as the \"first independent news channel in the Arab world\".\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Hamas trumpets' -\n<\/p>\n
\n Netanyahu charged in a statement Sunday that \"Al Jazeera correspondents have harmed the security of Israel and incited against IDF (Israeli military) soldiers\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"There will be no freedom of speech for the Hamas trumpets in Israel,\" Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said in the joint statement with Netanyahu.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Al Jazeera will be closed immediately and the equipment will be confiscated.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n AFP saw that Al Jazeera's Jerusalem office had been closed, and social media footage showed Israeli authorities removing equipment from an east Jerusalem hotel used by the broadcaster.\n<\/p>\n
\n Karhi issued an order to seize devices \"used to deliver the channel's content\", including cameras, editing equipment, laptops and some cell phones.\n<\/p>\n
\n Netanyahu's government has had a long-running feud with Al Jazeera from before the war in Gaza.\n<\/p>\n
\n The dispute worsened amid Israeli criticism of its coverage of the war that broke out after Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel.\n<\/p>\n
\n The attack resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli figures.\n<\/p>\n
\n Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,683 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Obliterating the truth' -\n<\/p>\n
\n Speaking to AFP, Walid al-Omari, head of Al Jazeera's offices in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, charged that the Israeli move was aimed at \"obliterating the truth\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Al Jazeera is one of the leading media outlets in conveying the truth about what this disastrous war is (doing to) civilians and citizens ... in the Gaza Strip,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hamas also slammed Israel's decision, calling it \"a repressive and retaliatory measure against the professional role of Al Jazeera in exposing the crimes and violations\" in the Gaza war.\n<\/p>\n
\n The closure is \"aimed at concealing the truth\", a Hamas statement said.\n<\/p>\n
\n At least 97 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war began, among them Palestinians, Israelis and Lebanese, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).\n<\/p>\n
\n The number marks \"the deadliest period for journalists\" since 1992, when the CPJ began gathering data.\n<\/p>\n
\n In January, Israel said an Al Jazeera staff journalist and a freelancer killed in a Gaza air strike were \"terror operatives\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The following month, it accused another Al Jazeera journalist wounded in a separate strike of being a \"deputy company commander\" with Hamas.\n<\/p>\n
\n Al Jazeera has fiercely denied Israel's allegations, and accused it of systematically targeting its employees in Gaza.\n<\/p>\n
\n Launched in Doha in 1996, the network says it has more than 70 bureaux around the globe, with 3,000 employees and an audience in 430 million homes.\n<\/p>\n
\n Qatar, which partly funds Al Jazeera, also serves as a base for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.\n<\/p>\n
\n Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh was wounded in an Israeli strike in December that killed the network's cameraman.\n<\/p>\n
\n Dahdouh's wife, two of their children and a grandson were killed in October bombardment of central Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp.\n<\/p>\n
\n And Dahdouh's eldest son was the Al Jazeera staff journalist killed in January when a strike targeted a car in Rafah.\n<\/p>\n
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Al Jazeera went off-air in Israel Sunday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government decided to shut it down following a long-running feud, a move the Qatar-based channel decried as \"criminal\". Netanyahu declared on X that the government had \"unanimously decided: the incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel\". The government said the order […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-131587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n