Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday April 1 that he wanted to “act immediately” to ban the broadcast of Al Jazeera in Israel, shortly after Parliament voted for a law authorizing it to do so.
“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 activities of the channel,” Netanyahu said on the social network X.
During the day, the Israeli parliament adopted a text allowing the broadcasting in the country of foreign media that undermines state security. Voted by 70 votes to 10 and targeting the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera, the law gives the prime minister the possibility of banning the broadcast of content from the targeted channel but also of closing its offices in Israel.
The Israeli military has repeatedly claimed that Al-Jazeera journalists are “terrorist agents” affiliated with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
In February, Al Jazeera accused Israel of systematically targeting its employees working in Gaza. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an association based in New York, at least 95 journalists have been killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, 90 of whom are Palestinians.
Two Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7, while the channel’s Gaza bureau chief was injured.