Palestinian Authority Temporarily Bans Al Jazeera

[Pelican Press 0]

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************ Authority Temporarily Bans Al Jazeera

The ************ Authority announced on Wednesday that it would temporarily bar Al Jazeera from operating in its areas, accusing the Qatari-funded broadcaster of “inciting sedition” and “interfering in internal ************ affairs.” The move comes several months after the news outlet was banned by Israel on national security grounds.

WAFA, the ************ government’s official media arm, said Al Jazeera — one of the Arab world’s most influential broadcasters — must immediately shutter its local offices and “freeze all the work of its journalists.” The ban would last until the channel had “corrected its legal status,” the announcement said.

************ officials did not provide detailed examples of how Al Jazeera had broken any local laws. The ************ Authority administers some areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including major ************ cities.

Al Jazeera denounced the ************ decision, calling it “an attempt to prevent coverage of the escalating events witnessed in the occupied territories.” The channel broadcast footage of ************ security officers handing the order to one of its journalists.

“From this moment, any broadcast or activities are forbidden,” an officer said.

************ critics and human rights groups have charged the ************ Authority with launching an increasingly authoritarian crackdown on dissent, violently assaulting demonstrators and intimidating critics of Mahmoud Abbas, the authority’s president.

The decision was the latest blow to Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza in recent months.

In May, Israel shut down Al Jazeera in the country and shuttered its offices on security grounds, prompting an outcry from press-freedom advocates. Months later, Israeli forces raided the channel’s offices in the West Bank city of Ramallah, seizing computers and cameras.

Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have long labeled the network a “mouthpiece” for ******, the ************ militant group that led the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that set off the war in Gaza.

Israel has also accused members of the Al Jazeera team in Gaza of belonging to ******. In July, the Israeli military killed Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza, in an airstrike, claiming he was a member of ******’s military wing. Al Jazeera has rejected all the allegations as baseless.

But there has also been bad blood between Al Jazeera and the ************ Authority, which is dominated by the secularist ****** party. ****** officials have sometimes accused the channel of being a bulwark of support for ******, which ejected ****** from Gaza in 2007.

The tensions appeared to escalate in recent weeks after the ************ Authority launched a rare operation in the northern West Bank city of Jenin to crack down on militants, some of whom are affiliated with ****** and Islamic ******. At least five ************ officers were killed in battles with the militants since the operation began last month.

Pressed for examples of incitement, Mounir al-Jaghoub, a ****** official, pointed to an Al Jazeera clip critical of the crackdown in Jenin as evidence. Through a satirical skit, the video

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the ************ Authority of collaborating with Israel to crack down on ************ militants fighting against Israeli rule.

In its statement, Al Jazeera accused the ************ Authority of “attempting to hide the truth of events in the occupied territories, especially Jenin.”

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