Tuesday, April 2, 2024–Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to use a fresh national security law passed by parliament to ban news channel Al Jazeera from broadcasting in the country.
The law, passed on Monday by 70 votes
to 10, grants top ministers the power to ban broadcasts by foreign channels
seen as a national security threat and to shut their offices.
Netanyahu quickly called out
Qatar-based channel Al Jazeera, the media station known for being critical of
the Israeli government even before Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
“The terrorist channel Al Jazeera will no
longer broadcast from Israel. I intend to act immediately in accordance with
the new law to stop the channel’s activities,” Netanyahu said on X, formerly
Twitter.
The broadcaster slammed the ban as “part of
a series of systematic Israeli attacks to silence Al Jazeera”, including the
killing of one of its most prominent journalists in the region while covering
an Israeli raid in May 2022.
In a statement, Al Jazeera said
Netanyahu had launched a “frantic” and “disgraceful” campaign of accusations
against the network, vowing to continue its “bold” coverage of the war.
Two Al Jazeera correspondents have been
killed during the war and the broadcaster’s office in the besieged Palestinian
territory has been bombed.
At least 95 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war began after an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7, according to the group, marking “the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992”.
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