Israel moves to ban Al Jazeera amid Gaza war

A bill granting senior ministers the power to prohibit news station Al Jazeera’s broadcasts from entering Israel was passed by the Israeli parliament on Monday. Premier Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to implement this measure.

This bill, which was approved by a vote of 70 to 10, permits international networks to close their operations in Israel while simultaneously prohibiting the transmission of their programming.

After the law is passed, Netanyahu has promised to take “immediate action” to shut down Al Jazeera in Israel.

When an airstrike in Gaza killed a freelance journalist and a staff journalist for Al Jazeera, Israel had declared that they were “terror operatives” in January.

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It was reported the next month that one of the channel’s journalists who had been injured in an unrelated attack was a “deputy company commander” for Hamas.

Since October, Israeli forces have been engaged in combat with Hamas in Gaza.

Al Jazeera has categorically refuted the allegations and charged that Israel is deliberately pursuing its staff members in the Gaza Strip.

Last month, the law that would allow officials to suppress foreign media that is thought to jeopardize national security cleared its first parliamentary obstacle.

According to Netanyahu’s Likud party, he requested that the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, “ensure that the law to close Al Jazeera will be approved this evening.”

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Wael al-Dahdouh, the head of Al Jazeera’s bureau in the Palestinian territory, was also hurt in the December Israeli strike that claimed the life of the network’s cameraman.

According to Israeli official estimates, the militant group’s October 7 attack in Israel resulted in roughly 1,160 casualties, largely civilians. This marked the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza claims that at least 32,845 Palestinians have died as a result of Israel’s retaliatory campaign, the majority of them were women and children.

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