Netanyahu vows to ‘remove Al Jazeera from Israel’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this evening vowed to close the Al Jazeera office in the occupied city of Jerusalem.

“The Al Jazeera network continues to incite violence around the Temple Mount,” he wrote in a Hebrew-language Facebook post using the Israeli name for Al-Aqsa Mosque.

For the past 11 days, clashes between Israeli occupation forces and Palestinians have been taking place in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank after Israel added metal detectors and advanced surveillance cameras at the doors of Al-Aqsa Mosque. Palestinians have protested the move which  they said is a change to the status quo and a further step towards Judaising the Muslim holy site.

Read: End of Al Jazeera, a dark day for the Middle East

Al Jazeera was not immediately available for comment on Netanyahu’s accusation, but the channel usually denies such an accusation.

“I have appealed to law enforcement agencies several times to close the Al Jazeera office in Jerusalem. If this does not happen because of legal reasons, I will work to legislate the laws required to remove Al Jazeera from Israel.”