Israel forces raid Al Jazeera's West Bank office, orders to close it
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Ramallah: Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera said that Israeli soldiers raided its office in the occupied West Bank, handing a closure order to the network’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari early on Sunday.
The outlet reported that one of the heavily armed and masked soldiers, handing a closure order, told Walid al-Omari ‘There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days’.
The solider told the journalist in Arabic to ‘take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment.’
In May, Israel banned the network from operating inside the country alleging that it threatened national security and raided a hotel in Jerusalem, which the TV channel used as its office.
Al Jazeera termed the ban a ‘criminal act’, which the outlet said ‘violates human rights and the basic right to access of information.’
It is reported that Israel had killed the network’s journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul last month in an airstrike accusing him of having taken part as a Hamas operative in the October 7 attack in Israel.
Claiming that Al-Ghoul was a member of the elite Nukhba unit involved in the October 7 attack, the Israeli military said that the journalist helped recording and publicising attack on Israeli troops.
In a statement on August 1 the Israeli military said that ‘His activities in the field were a vital part of Hamas' military activity.’
Al Jazeera termed the allegations ‘baseless’, while calling them an attempt to justify Israel’s deliberate killing of the journalist.
