Israel's parliament passed a bill on Monday that would allow the closure of Al Jazeera's reporting operations in Israel, a decision the White House deemed “concerning” about restricting press freedom.
The bill, which passed 71-10, paves the way for Israel to shut down foreign media outlets it deems to pose a security risk, a move widely seen as targeting Al Jazeera. . Israel accuses the Qatar-based news agency of being a propaganda arm for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday accused the organization of supporting Hamas terrorists during the October 7 attack. .
“Al Jazeera violated Israel's security, actively participated in the October 7 massacre, and incited attacks against IDF soldiers. The time has come to rid our country of the Hamas shofar,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said. I wrote it on the program. “Al-Jazeera, a specialized terrorism channel, will no longer broadcast from Israel. I will act immediately in accordance with the new law and suspend the channel's activities.”
The law allows the government to close outlets for 45 days, which can be renewed. The law itself expires on July 31, unless Israel lifts the country's state of emergency by then.
According to the newspaper, Communications Minister Shlomo Karai, who promoted the bill, said, “It is true that a news organization with a bureau in Israel that holds the press status of a government media bureau would act against us from within during a war. “is unacceptable,” he said. Reuters.
Al Jazeera did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The impending ban comes after several journalists and their families were killed in the Israeli military's siege of Gaza. Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdou, fled the country in January after his wife and three children were killed in an Israeli airstrike and he was injured in an airstrike in December. He learned of the death of his wife and two children during the October broadcast.
The law's passage also comes after years of hostility between Israel and the outlet, which is partly publicly funded by the Qatari government. Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akre was killed in May 2022 while wearing a press badge while covering an Israeli Defense Force raid in the West Bank. The United Nations blamed Israel for her death and acknowledged that Israel was likely responsible.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters she was “concerned” about Netanyahu's intentions and reiterated the Biden administration's commitment to press freedom.
“This is extremely important,” she said at a White House press briefing on Monday. “This is very important because the United States supports journalists doing very important work around the world, including those covering the Gaza conflict.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also condemned the law, saying it posed a “grave threat to international media in the country.” “This contributes to a climate of self-censorship and hostility toward the press, a trend that has intensified since the start of the Israel-Gaza war,” CPJ added in a statement.
The nonprofit group said 95 journalists and media workers had been killed as of Monday since the Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,200 Israelis. Some 33,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its counterattack, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
According to CPJ, 90 of the approximately 100 journalists killed were Palestinian.
