Middle East Crisis ; Israeli Cabinet Votes to Shut Down Al Jazeera’s Operations in the Country

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Sunday that his cabinet had voted to shut down the Israeli operations of Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based network that is one of the most widely viewed sources of television news in the Arab world.

The decision, which had been expected, could complicate Israel’s relationship with Qatar, which has been helping to mediate cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. Journalism organizations have said that such a closure would be a blow to press freedom.

Mr. Netanyahu, who made the announcement on social media, had previously called Al Jazeera a “Hamas mouthpiece” and said he would close it. Israeli lawmakers passed a bill last month allowing the government to temporarily close foreign media outlets that Mr. Netanyahu determined were undermining the country’s national security.

There was no immediate response from the network, or from the Qatari government, which helps fund it.

Mr. Netanyahu’s government has had a tense relationship with the network for years. It has played a leading role in reporting from Gaza during the war between Israel and Hamas that began in October, and several of its journalists have been killed in the conflict.

“The government under my leadership has decided unanimously: The incitement channel Al Jazeera will be shut down in Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu said on X, formerly Twitter. It was not immediately clear whether the closure would be permanent or if it would affect the network’s reporting in Gaza and the West Bank.

Al Jazeera “will no longer broadcast here in Israel and its equipment will be confiscated,” Israel’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, said in a video statement. He also said that the vote to close the network in Israel had been unanimous.

Much of Al Jazeera’s reporting in Gaza has focused on the suffering of Palestinian civilians during the war, some of it involving its own staff and their families. In October, Wael al-Dahdouh, the Gaza bureau chief of Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language service, was told live on air that his wife, son, daughter and infant grandson had been killed in central Gaza, where they had been sheltering. In January, his eldest son was killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to the authorities in Gaza.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg

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