Critics Say IDF Shutdown of Al Jazeera’s West Bank Bureau Is ‘Aimed at Erasing the Truth’

Press freedom advocates accused Israel of “trying to erase the truth” after heavily armed soldiers raided Al Jazeera‘s bureau in the West Bank of Palestine early Sunday morning and ordered the outlet – which has been the world’s sole media window on the Gaza genocide – to shut down for 45 days.

Al Jazeera – which is owned by the Qatari government – said Israel Defense Forces troops stormed its bureau in Ramallah, the capital of the illegally occupied West Bank, at 3:00 am Sunday during a live broadcast. IDF troops confiscated documents and equipment and took the microphone from the hand of bureau chief Walid al-Omari as he reported on the raid.

The network – which was ordered to cease operations for 45 days – said the soldiers tore down a poster of Shireen Abu Akleh, the renowned Palestinian-American Al Jazeera correspondent who was shot dead by Israeli troops in May 2022 while covering an IDF raid on the Jenin refugee camp.

“This is part of a larger campaign against the Palestinian outlets and media in general aimed at erasing the truth,” al-Omari said in an interview with Al Araby Al Jadeed. “We’ve been under increasing incitement since the beginning of the war.”

This is how heavily armed and masked Israeli soldiers raided Al Jazeera’s bureau in the occupied West Bank's Ramallah and imposed a 45-day closure order.

The network has condemned the action as ‘criminal’ and an affront to press freedom. pic.twitter.com/bofxlDFR9Y

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) September 22, 2024

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned the shutdown as an “arbitrary military decision” and “a new aggression against journalistic work and media outlets.”

Israel’s Foreign Press Association said it is “deeply troubled by this escalation, which threatens press freedom, and urges the Israeli government to reconsider these actions,” adding that “restricting foreign reporters and closing news channels signals a shift away from democratic values.”

The IDF acknowledged the raid later Sunday, claiming without evidence that Al Jazeera‘s Ramallah bureau was “being used to incite terror [and] to support terrorist activities.”

Sunday’s raid followed a May raid and shutdown of Al Jazeera‘s Jerusalem bureau, which is believed to be the first such action against a foreign media outlet operating in Israel.

Why would Israel shut Al Jazeera's bureau in Ramallah? Because it has been the center of Al Jazeera's reporting on Israeli repression — the apartheid — in the occupied West Bank. Rather than stop the repression, Israel tries to stop the news about it. https://t.co/BwqKKFFBAL

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) September 22, 2024

Responding to the raid, Carlos Martínez de la Serna, program director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said that the group “is deeply alarmed by Israel’s closure of Al Jazeera‘s office in the occupied West Bank, just months after it shuttered Al Jazeera‘s operations in Israel after deeming it a threat to national security.”

Al Jazeera is the only international news network providing nonstop on-the-ground coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza. Its reporters work under constant risk to life and limb, as more than 100 media professionals, the vast majority of them Palestinians, have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7. CPJ and others say have decried what they say are deliberate attacks on media workers and their families.

In December, Israeli troops killedAl Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa as he reported on the war in southern Gaza, an attack that also injured the network’sGaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, whose wife, son, daughter, and grandson were killed in a separate IDF strike.

Previous independent probes – including investigations of Abu Akleh’s killing – have confirmed that Israel has deliberately targeted journalists.

Last May, CPJ published Deadly Pattern, an investigation that found the IDF killed at least 20 journalists over the past 22 years with impunity. While some of the slain journalists have been foreigners – including Italian Associated Press reporter Simone Camilli and British cameraman and filmmaker James Miller—the vast majority of victims have been Palestinian.

Israeli forces have also attacked newsrooms in every major assault on Gaza, including in May 2021 when the 11-story al-Jalaa Tower, which housed offices of Al Jazeera, The Associated Press, and other media outlets, was destroyed in an airstrike.

U.S. investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill pointed out Sunday that Al Jazeera has also been targeted by American forces during the so-called War on Terror. He noted that U.S. forces “bombed its facilities, killed its Baghdad correspondent, and locked a cameraman in Guantánamo.”

“Israel has repeated this pattern,” Scahill added. “All journalists must condemn these violent assaults on freedom of the press.”

Brett Wilkins is is staff writer for Common Dreams. Based in San Francisco, his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace. This originally appeared at CommonDreams and is reprinted with the author’s permission.