Israeli officials raid Jerusalem hotel room used by Al Jazeera after ban order

A hotel room in Jerusalem used by Al Jazeera as its de facto office was raided by the Israeli police on May 6, after the Benjamin Netanyahu government ordered the Qatari-owned TV station to shut down local operations.

Videos doing the rounds showed officers in plainclothes dismantling camera equipment in a hotel room.

Reuters news agency, quoting an Al Jazeera source, said that the hotel was located in East Jerusalem.

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 provider 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 October 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.

“Al Jazeera reporters harmed Israel's security and incited against soldiers,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “It's time to remove the Hamas mouthpiece from our country.”

Al Jazeera issued a statement vowing it will “pursue all available legal channels through international legal institutions in its quest to protect both its rights and journalists, as well as the public's right to information.”

“Israel's ongoing suppression of the free press, seen as an effort to conceal its actions in the Gaza Strip, stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law,” the network said.

“Israel's direct targeting and killing of journalists, arrests, intimidation and threats will not deter Al Jazeera." Israeli media said the order allows Israel to block the channel from operating in the country for 45 days.

The Israeli government has taken action against individual reporters over the decades since its founding in 1948, but broadly allows for a rambunctious media scene that includes foreign bureaus from around the world, even from Arab nations.

That changed with a law passed last month, which Netanyahu's office says allows the government to take action against a foreign channel seen as “harming the country.”

Israeli Communication Minister Shlomo Karhi later published footage online of authorities raiding a hotel room Al Jazeera had been broadcasting from in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to one day have for their future state. He said officials seized some of the channel's equipment there.

“We finally are able to stop Al Jazeera's well-oiled incitement machine that harms the security of the country,” Karhi said.

The ban did not appear to affect the channel's operations in the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip, where Israel wields control but which are not sovereign Israeli territory.

(With agency inputs)

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