Israel working to shut Al Jazeera

An official Israeli channel said that the Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara is in the process of submitting emergency regulations allowing Israel to shut down the operations of Qatar’s Al Jazeera news station in Israel and stop it from broadcasting from there.

The regulations were proposed by Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, and his version gives him the authority to “instruct the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council to revoke a foreign media’s broadcast licence; shut down its offices; and seize its equipment, if he believed that the outlet’s broadcasts were harming state security,” according to the Times of Israel.

Karhi had earlier accused Al Jazeera of “endangering the security of Israeli forces” by filming their positions and disseminating statements from the Palestinian group Hamas.

However, Baharav-Miara objects to the proposal because according to the current version of the regulations, authority is given to the communications minister instead of the Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, and that the orders against a foreign media outlet would not need the approval of a district court.

The security cabinet is currently deliberating the regulations, and the communications minister is urging it to approve the regulations despite the attorney general’s opposition.

Earlier Monday, the Kan public broadcaster said that the Israeli foreign intelligence service, Mossad, supports the request to close the offices of Al Jazeera, claiming that the channel’s reporters “were revealing military staging areas and other sensitive locations, as Israeli forces assemble in the south for a possible grand operation in the Gaza Strip.”

In a statement on 13 October, Al Jazeera Media Network held Israel responsible for the attack on journalists in southern Lebanon.

Al Jazeera confirmed that Israel targeted its network and international media networks in the attack on the Lebanese border, which resulted in the death of a journalist and the injury of five others, including two from Al Jazeera.

Last year an Israeli sniper targeted Al Jazeera journalist Shereen Abu Akleh as she covered a raid on Jenin camp in the occupied West Bank causing international uproar.

READ: 11 journalists killed, over 20 injured in Gaza since 7 October – Palestinian journalists’ group