(Doha) Qatari television channel Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces raided its offices in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and ordered it to close for 45 days.
An Israeli soldier told journalist Walid al-Omari: “There is a court decision to close Al Jazeera for 45 days,” the channel reported, citing the conversation that was broadcast live.
“I ask you to take all your cameras and leave the office immediately,” the soldier continued.
According to footage from the channel, the soldiers entered masked and heavily armed.
Al Jazeera says they did not give a reason for the closure order.
On September 12, the Israeli government announced the revocation of the press cards of several Al Jazeera journalists, four months after banning its broadcast and closing its bureau in Israel.
To this end, the Israeli parliament adopted a law at the beginning of April allowing it to take measures against foreign media “undermining state security”.
The 45-day shutdowns are renewable, and Al Jazeera’s shutdown in Israel was extended for a fourth time by a Tel Aviv court on September 11.
The ban had not previously affected the channel’s work in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, where Al Jazeera journalists are present to cover the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
The Israeli military has repeatedly accused Qatari journalists in Gaza of being “terrorist agents” affiliated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad, one of its allies.
For its part, Al Jazeera rejects the Israeli accusations and claims that Israel systematically targets its reporters deployed in the Gaza Strip.
The closure of the Ramallah office “is not a surprise,” Al Jazeera correspondent Nida Ibrahim was quoted as saying by the channel.
“We had heard Israeli officials threaten to close the office […]but we didn’t expect this to happen today,” she said.
In May, the channel described the sanction against it as “criminal.”
“We condemn and denounce Israel’s criminal act that violates the right of access to information,” she said in a statement.