“Why would Israel shut Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah?” asked one human rights defender. “Because it has been the center of Al Jazeera’s reporting on Israeli repression – the apartheid – in the occupied West Bank.”by Brett Wilkins Posted on
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.”
Hellbound and Down 