Gunfire and the sounds of tear gas continue to echo near Al Jazeera’s offices in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, following an Israeli military raid that resulted in the forced closure of the bureau.
Heavily armed and masked Israeli soldiers entered the building early Sunday, delivering a 45-day closure order to the West Bank bureau chief, Walid al-Omari.
The soldiers did not provide an explanation for the abrupt closure. This follows a similar ban imposed on Al Jazeera's operations inside Israel earlier this year.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Ramallah, noted that the closure was expected after earlier threats from Israeli officials. "We’ve heard discussions about shutting down the bureau, but we didn’t expect it to happen today," she said.
The raid comes months after the Israeli government prohibited Al Jazeera from operating within Israel, a decision that has been repeatedly extended, preventing the network from reporting from inside the country. The West Bank bureau closure further escalates Israel's crackdown on the network’s journalists in the region.
Al Jazeera's bureau chief, al-Omari, voiced concerns about the potential damage Israeli forces might inflict on the office, saying, "Targeting journalists is an attempt to suppress the truth and silence voices."
The government media office in Gaza condemned the raid, calling it a “deafening scandal” and urging international media organizations and human rights groups to denounce the act as a violation of press freedom.
Media rights groups have criticized Israel for its restrictions on journalists, particularly Palestinian reporters covering the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which has seen continuous Israeli strikes in recent weeks.
