Israel’s cabinet unanimously voted to shut down Al Jazeera in the country on Sunday, immediately ordering the closure of its offices and a ban on the company’s broadcasts.

The decision was announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on X. Hours later, Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi published footage on X showing Israeli authorities – specifically inspectors from the Ministry of Communications, backed by the police – raiding the Al Jazeera office in East Jerusalem and confiscating the channel’s equipment.

The shutdown comes a month after Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a law on April 1 that allowed Israel to temporarily shut down foreign media outlets — including Al Jazeera — if it deems them a threat to security.

In a previously recorded report, Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, explained the terms of the law further. Based on the law, the Al Jazeera website is banned in Israel, “including anything that has the option of entering or accessing the website, even passwords that are needed, whether they’re paid or not, and whether it’s stored on Israeli servers or outside of Israel”, Khan added.

Additionally, the Al Jazeera television channel is completely banned in Israel, he explained. Within the country, cable providers now show a message that the network is prohibited from the air, though in East Jerusalem, some people have told Al Jazeera that they could still access the channel on television as of Monday afternoon.

Khan added that the internet access provider that hosts aljazeera.net “is also in danger of being fined if they host the website”.

Akiva Eldar, a political analyst and contributor to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, told Al Jazeera that the shutdown is “a very populistic move to feed the beast of the public opinion that is very disappointed from the conduct of the government in Gaza and in the international arena”, adding that this is also “to please the partners from the radical right”. Netanyahu’s government relies on support from a band of far-right parties and leaders — many of them, like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, holding key positions in the cabinet.

Karhi’s office said that Al Jazeera is shut down for 45 days, and the shutdown can be renewed, in accordance with the law passed on April 1.

When the law was passed, Netanyahu said he would “act immediately” in accordance with it to stop Al Jazeera’s activity. However, the timing of the shutdown, a month later, coincides with crucial negotiations between Israel and Hamas on the war, mediated by Egypt and Qatar, where Al Jazeera has its headquarters.

Al Jazeera has been targeted by Israel before: Netanyahu threatened to shut down its Jerusalem office back in 2017, and an Israeli missile destroyed the building housing the broadcaster’s office in Gaza in 2021. Many Al Jazeera journalists — and in several cases, their families — have been killed in Israeli firing or bombing, including during the current war in Gaza.

On Sunday, Al Jazeera released a statement condemning the shutdown, describing it as a “criminal act” and warning that Israel’s suppression of the free press “stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law”.

The statement further said that Al Jazeera would continue to provide news to a global audience.

Al Jazeera’s correspondents can no longer report from Israel, including occupied East Jerusalem. This is because both the main office in West Jerusalem and the office in occupied East Jerusalem were closed and equipment was confiscated.

Karhi said the equipment he ordered to be confiscated included editing and routing equipment, cameras, microphones, servers and laptops, alongside wireless transmission equipment and some mobile phones.

In the pre-recorded report, Al Jazeera’s Khan added that Israel is also banning any device used for providing content. “That includes my mobile phone. If I use that to do any kind of news gathering, then the Israelis can simply confiscate it”.

While it is unclear how the shutdown will affect the reporting from Al Jazeera correspondents who are in Gaza or the occupied West Bank, access to both Palestinian regions is controlled largely by Israel. Al Jazeera has called earlier attacks on its journalists and offices attempts to target its journalism and stop it from reporting on Israel’s assaults on Palestinians — including during the current war.

Since the beginning of the war on October 7, Israel has largely blocked entry into Gaza for foreign journalists.

That has meant that Al Jazeera’s correspondents in Gaza have been among the few from a major international media organisation to bring the deadly Israeli bombardment and killings in the Palestinian enclave to a global audience.

In February, more than 50 international broadcast journalists signed an open letter to Egyptian and Israeli authorities to call for “free and unfettered access to Gaza for all foreign media”.

Journalism advocacy groups and officials from around the world denounced the ban, warning it could stopper the free flow of information and chill democratic ideals.

“Israel makes much of being a democracy, and I think the idea that it can simply close down an international broadcaster of considerable repute and history is atrocious,” Tim Dawson from the International Federation of Journalists said in an interview with Al Jazeera. “Sadly, it is part of a long set of actions that the Israeli government has taken to try and thwart free reporting of this conflict.”

Speaking from the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday, national security advisor John Kirby reiterated that the administration of United States President Joe Biden opposed the shuttering of Al Jazeera in Israel.

“We don’t support that action, as we said very clearly on World Press Freedom Day on Friday,” Kirby explained.

“The work of independent journalism around the world is absolutely vital. It’s important to an informed citizenry and public, but it’s also important to help inform the policy-making process. So we don’t support that at all.”

The UN human rights office also condemned the shutdown in a post on the social media platform X on Sunday.

Greek economist and former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis posted on X on Monday, condemning the shutdown. “Israel’s banning of Al Jazeera is one aspect of its War On Truth. It aims at preventing Israelis from knowing that what goes on in Gaza,” he wrote.

On X, many others referenced Israel’s declared plan to launch a ground offensive in Gaza’s Rafah, its latest such land assault in seven months of unrelenting war in which more than 34,700 people have been killed.

Diane Abbott, United Kingdom parliamentarian, also condemned the shutdown in an X post on Monday.

Eldar, who spoke to Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv, said: “This is, I’m afraid, not the last step.”

He said that other news outlets might also see a shutdown by the Israeli government. “We know that there are ministers, among them the minister of communication, that are looking at other networks, including Israeli channels, that are not satisfying the government”.

In November, Karhi, the communications minister, threatened Eldar’s newspaper, Haaretz, with sanctions over its critical coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Eldar also added that he expected the law that the Netanyahu government used to shut down Al Jazeera to be challenged in court.

Al Jazeera also called on media freedom and human rights organisations to condemn the shutdown and is currently assessing what to do next. The statement published by the media network on Sunday said it would pursue “all available legal channels to protect both its rights and journalists”.

The Israeli military has said Iran has launched missiles at the country.

It added that sirens have sounded all across Israel and urged citizens to move to marked safe spaces.

The attack comes a short while after the US announced that it had received intelligence that Iran was planning an attack against Israel.

IRNA, Iran’s state-run news agency, confirmed that Tehran’s military has started launching ballistic missiles towards Israel.

Footage shared by media houses showed dozens of missiles flying across the sky towards Tel Aviv.

The missiles came as Israeli police said they received a report about a shooting attack in the Jaffa neighborhood of the city.

Police said the initial suspicion of motive is terror.

Multiple casualties were reported due to the attacks.

Iran said it targeted Israel in response to the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader, and other leaders.

“In response to the martyrdom of Martyr Haniyeh, Seyed Hassan Nasrallah and Martyr Nilfroshan, we targeted the heart of the occupied territories,” a statement from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said.

“If the Zionist regime reacts to Iran’s operations, it will face crushing attacks.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) urged Israelis to “remain alert and precisely follow the home front command’s instructions”.

“Upon hearing a siren, you must enter a protected space and remain there until further notice”, it added.

Meanwhile US President Joe Biden convened a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris and top national security officials to discuss the Iran ballistic missile attack on Israel.

The US and Israel had warned that any attacks from Iran would have grave repercussions.

By Agency Report

Hundreds of handheld pagers exploded near simultaneously in parts of Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people — including members of the militant group Hezbollah and two children — and wounding several thousand, according to Lebanon’s public health minister. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated, remote attack.

A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Israel had briefed the U.S. on the operation — in which small amounts of an explosive inside the pagers were detonated — after it was concluded. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly.

The Israeli military and government have declined to comment.

Among those wounded was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon. The mysterious incident came amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which have exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.

The pagers that blew up had apparently been acquired by Hezbollah after the group’s leader ordered members in February to stop using cell phones, warning they could be tracked by Israeli intelligence. A Hezbollah official told the AP that the pagers were a new brand, but declined to say how long they had been in use.

At about 3:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, pagers started heating up and then exploding in the pockets and hands of those carrying them — particularly in a southern Beirut suburb and the Beqaa region of eastern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has a strong presence, and in Damascus, where several Hezbollah members were wounded, Lebanese security officials and a Hezbollah official said. The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the news media.

The AP reached out to the Israeli military, which declined to comment. The explosions came hours after Israel’s internal security agency said it had foiled an attempt by Hezbollah to kill a former senior Israeli security official using a planted explosive device that could be remotely detonated.

Experts said the pager explosions showed signs of being a long-planned operation – though the means were not immediately known. Investigators had no immediate word on how the pagers were detonated or if explosives had somehow been sneaked into each pager.

Whatever the means, it targeted an extraordinary breadth of people with hundreds of small explosions — all at once, wherever the pager carrier happened to be — that left some maimed.

The U.S. said Tuesday it was not aware in advance and had no involvement in the mass explosions.

“I can tell you that the U.S. was not involved in it, the U.S. was not aware of this incident in advance and, at this point, we’re gathering information,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

One video circulating online showed a man picking through produce at a grocery store when the bag he’s carrying at his hip explodes, sending him sprawling to the ground and bystanders running. AP photographers at area hospitals said the emergency rooms were overloaded with patients. Some had missing hands or chunks blown out of their legs near the pocket area.

Lebanon’s health minister, Firas Abiad, said Wednesday that at least 12 people were killed, including an 12-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy and that 2,750 others were wounded — 200 of them critically — by the explosions. Most had injuries in the face, hand or around the abdomen.

Hezbollah said in a statement that two of its members were among those killed. The Hezbollah official who spoke anonymously identified one of the dead as Ali Ammar, the son of one of the group’s members in the Lebanese parliament.

“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression that also targeted civilians,” Hezbollah said, adding that Israel will “for sure get its just punishment.”

Iranian state-run IRNA news agency said that the country’s ambassador, Mojtaba Amani, was superficially wounded by an exploding pager and was being treated at a hospital.

Previously, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had warned the group’s members not to carry cellphones, saying that they could be used by Israel to track their movements and to carry out targeted strikes.

The images seen Tuesday showed signs of detonation, said Alex Plitsas, a weapons expert at the Atlantic Council. “A lithium ion battery fire is one thing, but I’ve never seen one explode like that. It looks like a small explosive charge,” Plitsas said.

Source: CBS News