The Palestinian Authority decided on Wednesday to suspend the broadcasting and activities of the Qatari channel Al Jazeera in the Palestinian Territories, accusing it in particular of ‘inciting sedition’ and ‘interfering’ in its affairs.
‘The competent ministerial committee, made up of the ministries of Culture, Interior and Communications, has decided to suspend broadcasting and freeze all activities of the Al Jazeera channel and its bureau in Palestine, as well as temporarily suspending the work of all journalists, employees, teams and affiliated channels until its legal status is rectified,’ reported the official Wafa news agency.
‘This decision comes in response to Al Jazeera's insistence on broadcasting content and reports characterised by disinformation, incitement to sedition and interference in internal Palestinian affairs,’ the agency added.
An Al Jazeera employee in the occupied West Bank confirmed to AFP that the channel's Ramallah bureau had been notified of its suspension on Wednesday.
Al Jazeera broadcast footage on Wednesday evening showing Palestinian Authority policemen bringing its journalists in Ramallah an official court document dated 1 January 2025.
The Palestinian Authority, chaired by Mahmoud Abbas, has partial administrative authority in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Its security forces have been involved for several weeks in violent clashes in Jenin with armed factions, which have already resulted in around ten deaths.
These groups, most of whose members belong to the Islamist movement Hamas and Islamic Jihad, consider themselves more effective in the fight against Israel than the Palestinian Authority.
Last week, Al Jazeera denounced a ‘campaign’ by Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah against it in the occupied West Bank.
‘This campaign followed the channel's coverage of clashes between the security forces and the armed resistance in Jenin’, explained the Qatari channel, which defended the neutrality of its work.
Hamas, Fatah's main rival, described the decision to suspend Al Jazeera as a ‘flagrant violation of press freedom’ and a ‘repressive act designed to silence dissenting voices’.
‘This decision is part of a recent series of arbitrary measures taken by the Authority to hinder public rights and freedoms and strengthen its security hold over the Palestinian people’, the movement added in a statement, calling on the Palestinian Authority to “immediately reverse its decision”.
Islamic Jihad, another armed Palestinian group, also protested against the Palestinian Authority's ban on Al Jazeera.
‘We condemn the authorities‘ decision to close Al Jazeera's office in Palestine, at a time when our people and our cause urgently need to make their suffering known to the whole world,’ said the organization, which took part in the attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in a statement.
The United Nations on Thursday urged the Palestinian Authority to "reverse course" after it suspended broadcasts by Al Jazeera.
"We are deeply concerned by Palestinian Authority's suspension of Al Jazeera operations and reporters in the West Bank amid troubling trend of suppressing freedom of opinion and expression" in the Palestinian territories, the UN human rights office said on X.
"We urge PA to reverse course and respect its international law obligations."
Israel had already decided last May to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting in the country and to close its offices there.
This was the result of a long-running conflict between the channel and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which escalated during the war that has been raging in the Gaza Strip for nearly 15 months.
The Israeli army has repeatedly accused Al Jazeera journalists of being ‘terrorist agents’ in Gaza affiliated to Hamas, which carried out an unprecedented attack in Israel on 7 October 2023 that sparked off the war.
With AFP.
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