expository
The network has continued to report on the plight of Palestinians despite the intimidation.
The Al Jazeera media network has strongly condemned the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) ban on its operations in the occupied West Bank this week, calling it an action that “conforms to Israeli occupation practices”.
Since its inception in 1996, Al Jazeera reporters have covered the Middle East, from the Arab Spring to Israeli settler violence in the West Bank and the brutal war in Gaza, even as other news organizations pulled their reporters.
From the beginning, Al Jazeera has faced attempts to silence its reporting through arrests, imprisonment and attacks on its journalists. And since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, the channel has faced even more attempts to stifle its reporting on Palestine.
Al Jazeera’s determination to provide round-the-clock, first-hand reporting on the horrors in Gaza and deadly raids in the occupied West Bank has come at a high cost, with at least six Al Jazeera journalists killed in the Palestinian territory from 2022.
The AP’s decision to ban Al Jazeera mirrors Israel’s announcement last year that the channel would be banned in Israel and the subsequent closure of its Ramallah bureau.
Here is a summary of how Al Jazeera has been targeted by the PA and Israel:
When did Al Jazeera start reporting from the West Bank and Gaza?
Al Jazeera has been reporting in Palestine since 2000, marking Al Jazeera Arabic’s first attempt to open a foreign bureau.
Al Jazeera has offices in Ramallah and occupied East Jerusalem in the West Bank, although both have now been suspended by the Israeli government or the PA.
In 2021, Israeli forces bombed the Gaza office.
How many times has the PA shut down Al Jazeera?
The PA controls parts of the occupied West Bank and has suspended Al Jazeera’s operations there three times:
- In March 2001, the PA, then led by President Yasser Arafat, occupied Al Jazeera’s offices in Ramallah and prevented staff from entering the building. No official reason was given. However, bureau chief Walid Al-Omari said at the time that a security official had called the bureau and accused the network of airing “offensive” footage of Arafat, demanding that it be removed.
- On July 15, 2009, PA security officials raided Al Jazeera’s offices in Ramallah and stopped its 35 employees from broadcasting. Officials claimed the network had broadcast “false information” because the late Palestinian politician Farouk Kaddoumi, in an interview, accused PA President Mahmoud Abbas of involvement in an Israeli plot to kill Arafat. The office was allowed to reopen four days later after an outcry from journalists’ rights groups.
- In December 2024, Fatah, the Palestinian party that dominates the PA, banned Al Jazeera from reporting from the governorates of Jenin, Qalqilya and Tubas in the occupied West Bank, citing its coverage of clashes between Palestinian security forces and armed groups. Palestinian. Since mid-December, PA security forces have cracked down on armed groups in what analysts say is an attempt to endear the PA to Israelis and the United States. The strike killed several civilians as well as West Bank journalist Shatha Sabbagh, 22.
- On January 2, 2025, the PA suspended all Al Jazeera broadcasts from the West Bank and placed restrictions on anyone working for the network.
How many times has Israel shut down Al Jazeera?
Israeli authorities have repeatedly tried to silence Al Jazeera. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long accused the network’s coverage of “inciting violence.” The network dismisses these claims as “arbitrary and hostile”.
- In July 2017, Netanyahu threatened to close Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem office in a Facebook post because the network was covering a clash between Palestinians and Israeli authorities over the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
- In May 2021, Israel bombed the Al Jazeera office in Gaza. Israeli forces gave Al Jazeera and other media organizations in the same building just one hour to evacuate the tower.
- In May 2024, Al Jazeera’s occupied office in East Jerusalem was raided and closed after the Israeli parliament passed a law allowing the government to suspend the operations of foreign media that pose a “threat” for 45 days at a time. . The ban, including a ban on Al Jazeera’s website in Israel, has been renewed several times and remains in effect. Al Jazeera now reports from Amman, Jordan.
- In September 2024, heavily armed and masked Israeli security forces raided Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah at 3 a.m. and shut down its operations while the bureau was broadcasting live. Israeli officials claimed the network supported “terrorism” and ordered a 45-day shutdown of operations. Al Jazeera staff were forced to stand in the street and threatened with a laser gun during the raid.
How many Al Jazeera journalists have been killed or injured in the West Bank and Gaza?
At least six Al Jazeera journalists have been killed by Israeli authorities in the West Bank and Gaza while on duty. In most cases, journalists were wearing marked press vests or were in clearly marked cars.
- Shireen Abu Akleh: Veteran journalist Abu Akleh was shot and killed with a bullet to the head on May 11, 2022, while reporting on an Israeli raid in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. Despite the fact that she was wearing a helmet and a vest clearly marked “Press”, an Israeli sniper’s bullet penetrated just below her helmet. Israeli forces at first tried to blame “crusaders” on Palestinian fighters, but were forced to back down when extensive video evidence proved that no Palestinian fighters were nearby. No action was taken against the sniper. Israeli forces attacked her funeral procession attended by thousands of Palestinians paying their respects – at one point causing her coffin to slide and nearly hit the ground.
- Samer Abudaqa: On December 15, 2023, an Israeli airstrike wounded Al Jazeera cameraman Abudaqa in Khan Younis, Gaza. Israeli officials prevented emergency vehicles from reaching him, despite international pleas, after he bled for hours.
- Wael Dahdouh: Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, whose wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed by Israeli bombs in Gaza, was filming with Abudaqa and was injured in the same attack. On January 7, 2024, Dahdouh’s son, Hamza Dahdouh, who also worked as a journalist for Al Jazeera, was killed in an attack along with his colleague, Mustafa Thuraya.
- Ismail Abu Omar: On February 13, 2024, an Israeli drone struck Abu Omar, an Arab correspondent for Al Jazeera, and his cameraman, Ahmad Matar, in Rafah, southern Gaza. The two men were seriously injured.
- Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi: Al Jazeera Arab correspondent al-Ghoul was reporting with cameraman al-Rifi on July 31, 2024, when an Israeli airstrike hit their car in the Shati refugee area of ​​Gaza City. Al-Ghoul was previously arrested and severely beaten by Israeli forces in March 2024 while covering raids on al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
- Hossam Shabat: Shabat was wounded on November 20, 2024, during a second Israeli raid on a house that had just been hit, and on which he was reporting.
- Ahmed al-Louh: Israel killed Al Jazeera Arab photojournalist al-Louh on December 15, 2024, while he was covering Palestinian Civil Defense efforts to rescue an injured family in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. Five others were killed.
