The unjust decision to close the channel’s office is nothing but a clear and blatant violation against press freedoms, says MADA.
This statement was originally published on madacenter.org on 6 May 2024.
The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) condemns the Israeli Occupation State’s decision to close the offices of “Al Jazeera” channel, after it had previously issued a decision to prevent it from broadcasting, on the grounds of supporting terrorism and threatening Israeli national security.
The occupation authorities’ issuance of this decision comes as a continuation of the war they began against the channel after they killed Al Jazeera’s correspondent in 2022, SHIREEN ABU AKLEH, and then targeted and killed the channel’s correspondent, HAMZA AL-DAHDOUH, photographer SAMER ABU DAQQA, and other journalists, until their number reached 139 journalists since the beginning of the war.
This decision also comes as part of the violation of freedom of the press, the fight against various media outlets in Palestine, and the fight against the Palestinian media itself, which works to transmit news and images about the course of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank since October 7, 2023.
The occupation forces worked to destroy the headquarters of local and foreign media institutions, and destroyed the homes of dozens of journalists, displacing them and their families, the last of which was on Sunday morning when the occupation forces targeted with missiles the homes of journalists HASSAN ESLIH and ISMAIL and blew them up.
This unjust decision to close the channel’s office and prevent it from covering is nothing but a clear and blatant violation against the freedom of the press to prevent it from exposing the practices of the occupation forces against the Palestinian people, against whom the harshest and most heinous crimes are committed, which have reached the point of genocide in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank as well.
MADA condemns this decision in the strongest terms, which constitutes a grave violation of media freedoms, and stresses that coverage will continue by all journalists and media institutions, and the occupation with its tyranny will not be able to silence or hide their voices and prevent them from conveying and circulating the facts until they reach the entire world.
MADA also emphasizes that the restrictions imposed by the occupation authorities on the media will not prevent them from continuing their journalistic work and completing their humanitarian mission, and calls on international institutions concerned with media freedoms to put some pressure on the occupation authorities to reverse their decision and stop their crimes against civilians first and against journalists and media institutions second; and to take all necessary punitive measures against the occupation authorities that continue to target Palestinian journalists and media freedoms.
