JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Monday (April 1) to impose a broadcast ban in Israel from the Al Jazeera news channel using authorities recently granted by the country’s parliament.
The possible ban represents a new escalation in the ongoing conflict between the Israeli government and the Qatar-based channel, which has intensified during Israel’s war with Hamas militants in Gaza.
“The terrorist channel Al Jazeera will no longer broadcast from Israel. “I intend to act immediately in accordance with the new law to stop the channel’s activities,” Netanyahu said on X, formerly Twitter.
Hours after the move toward a broadcast ban, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said “if this is true, actions like this are concerning.”
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the law underlying Netanyahu’s pledge gives Israel the authority to shut down all foreign outlets operating within its borders.
“This contributes to a climate of self-censorship and hostility towards the press, a trend that has increased since the Israel-Gaza war began,” the group’s statement added.
Israel claimed in January that an Al Jazeera staff journalist and a freelancer were killed in an airstrike in Gaza in a “terror operation”.
The following month they said another journalist for the channel, who was injured in a separate attack, was a “deputy company commander” in Hamas.
Al Jazeera strongly denied Israel’s accusations and accused Israel of systematically targeting Al Jazeera employees in the Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in the Palestinian territories, Wael al-Dahdouh, was also injured in an Israeli attack in December that killed the network’s cameraman.
His wife, their two children and a grandson were killed in the bombing of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza in October, while his eldest son was an Al Jazeera staff journalist who was killed in January when an attack targeted a car in Rafah.
ESCAPED WITH A WIDE MARGIN
The law at the heart of Netanyahu’s move to ban Al Jazeera passed on Monday by 70 votes to 10 and gives ministers the authority to ban broadcasts of content from foreign channels deemed to be a security threat.
The law also allows Israel to order the closure of outlets.
Al Jazeera bills itself as “the Arab world’s first independent news channel”, and began broadcasting in Doha in 1996.
Qatar is also the headquarters of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Al Jazeera said it has more than 70 bureaus worldwide, with more than 3,000 employees from more than 95 countries and reaching more than 430 million homes.
Tensions between Israel and Al Jazeera have increased since the conflict erupted on October 7.
Gaza’s bloodiest war ever began with an unprecedented Hamas offensive that resulted in some 1,160 deaths in Israel, most of them civilians.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign, aimed at destroying Hamas, has killed at least 32,000 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
