Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance.
The extraordinary order, which includes confiscating broadcast equipment, preventing the broadcast of the channel’s reports and blocking its websites, is believed to be the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet.
Al Jazeera went off Israel’s main cable and satellite providers in the hours after the order. However, its website and multiple online streaming links still operated Sunday.
The network has reported the Israeli-Hamas war nonstop since the militants’ initial cross-border attack Oct. 7 and has maintained 24-hour coverage in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s grinding ground offensive that has killed and wounded members of its own staff. While including on-the-ground reporting of the war’s casualties, its Arabic arm often publishes verbatim video statements from Hamas and other militant groups in the region
UPDATED – Israeli authorities raid Al Jazeera after shutdown order
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An Al Jazeera correspondent on its Arabic service said the order would affect the broadcaster’s operations in Israel and in east Jerusalem, where it has been doing live shots for months since the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war in Gaza.
The decision threatens to heighten tensions with Qatar at a time when the Doha government is playing a key role in mediation efforts to halt the war in Gaza, along with Egypt and the United States.
Relations took a major downturn nearly two years ago when Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was killed during an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.
Al Jazeera is one of the few international media outlets to remain in Gaza throughout the war, broadcasting bloody scenes of airstrikes and overcrowded hospitals and accusing Israel of massacres.
While Al Jazeera’s English operation often resembles the programming found on other major broadcast networks, its Arabic arm often publishes verbatim video statements from Hamas and other militant groups in the region.
Sunday’s development immediately recalled Egypt’s shutdown of Al Jazeera after the country’s 2013 military takeover following mass protests against President Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood group.
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