Losing The Narrative War: Israel Illegally Raids and Shuts Down Al Jazeera's West Bank Bureau

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As the Israeli government struggles to maintain its preferred narrative in the global news media around the country’s brutal assault on Gaza, the Israeli military illegally raided Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau in Ramallah on September 22 and said the news network would be shut down for 45 days.

Israel’s latest act of lawfare against Al Jazeera occurred several months after the Israeli military raided Al Jazeera’s office in East Jerusalem in May. In that raid, soldiers seized the network’s media equipment after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Knesset banned Al Jazeera from operating in the country. 

“The Network vehemently condemns and denounces this criminal act by the Israeli occupation forces. Al Jazeera reject the draconian actions, and the unfounded allegations presented by Israeli authorities to justify these illegal raids,” Al Jazeera stated. “Al Jazeera reaffirms its unwavering commitment to continue reporting on the war on Gaza and the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories and the regional escalation.” 

Israeli communications minister Shlomo Karhi said the raid was launched to stop “the mouthpiece of Hamas and Hezbollah.” He added, “We will continue to fight the enemy’s channels and ensure the safety of our heroic fighters.” 

Al Jazeera’s media license in the West Bank does not come from the Israeli government but rather the Palestinian National Authority, which released a statement denouncing the illegal raid. 

According to reporting from Al Jazeera English, masked and “heavily armed” Israeli soldiers entered the Al Jazeera office in the early morning. A document reflecting a decision by an Israeli military general was shown to Al Jazeera media personnel. Every person in the office was given 10 minutes to grab their personal belongings and cameras and leave. 

Israeli soldiers tore down a poster of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian American correspondent for Al Jazeera who was effectively assassinated in May 2022 by Israeli military forces while reporting on a military raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.

Soldiers took the microphone from Walid Al-Omari, who is the West Bank bureau chief, as he tried to provide a live report on the raid. They confiscated media equipment and documents that had information potentially from confidential media sources. And the soldiers also welded shut the doors to the office. 

Carlos Martínez de la Serna, who is a program director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, condemned the raid and said, “Israel’s efforts to censor Al Jazeera severely undermine the public’s right to information on a war that has upended so many lives in the region. Al Jazeera’s journalists must be allowed to report at this critical time, and always.”

“The policy of this Israeli government is to prevent any voice that might contradict its official line. They have destroyed all the media in Gaza, targeted and killed journalists because they were doing their job, and now they want to wipe out the media in the occupied West Bank,” declared Anthony Bellanger, the secretary general for the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). 

The National Union of Journalists in the United Kingdom called the shut down of Al Jazeera in the West Bank a "dangerous act clearly intended to silence truths and prevent journalists from carrying out their crucial work. The seizure of confidential documents is particularly alarming, as we know protecting sources will be of utmost priority to all journalists impacted by the raid."

Zein Basravi, a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera’s bureau in the West Bank, was forced to report from Amman, Jordan, when Al Jazeera English turned to him for a reaction to the raid. He insisted that the raid had occurred at this time because “Israel is struggling to control the narrative.”

“Its own government has said over and over again that it is losing the narrative war, as well as it should be after a year of what is described as ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and genocide,” Basravi added. 

Consistently labeling Al Jazeera a “mouthpiece” for Hamas or Hezbollah is “straight out of Israel’s playbook,” Basravi also said. The government associates journalists “unfairly with the armed groups” that are “where we’re reporting” to intentionally inhibit “our ability to amplify the voice of Palestinians.”

The Shireen Abu Akleh Foundation responded to Israel tearing down a memorial poster of the slain journalist.

“These actions are not just an affront to Shireen's legacy but also a threat to the freedom of expression,” the foundation stated. “The violence against journalists continues, with AJ reporters targeted and their Jerusalem office closed months ago, and now their Ramallah bureau as well. These actions are an assault on press freedom. We will continue to demand justice and accountability for Shireen.”

As of September 20, there were more than 170 deaths of journalists in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian Territories. The Israeli military has detained nearly 100 Palestinian journalists—with 52 journalist still “languishing in Israeli jails.” 

Paired with the censorship regime that the Israeli government has imposed on international correspondents, the crackdown on Al Jazeera increases the Israeli government’s ability to commit atrocities without the world seeing them in real time. In fact, in the past month, Israel has significantly ramped up its acts of aggression against Palestinians in the West Bank. 

"Israel’s ongoing suppression of the free press is blatantly aimed at concealing its actions in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, in contravention of international and humanitarian law. Israel’s direct targeting and killing of journalists, along with arrests, intimidation, and threats, will not deter Al Jazeera from its commitment to coverage," declared the Al Jazeera news network.

Basravi recorded a video message in anticipation of the raid. “Where we are now in the occupied West Bank is the core of newsgathering hub from where Al Jazeera has carried out uninterrupted storytelling spanning three decades.” 

“In that time, our journalists have worked to bring our viewers stories about the Palestinian experience—everything from home demolitions to airstrikes, raids, and assassinations, the construction of separation barriers and the absurdity of occupation in the 21st century, the expansion of illegal settlements and the terror of settler violence, the humiliation and economic burdens of checkpoints, the suffering of thousands of incarcerated Palestinians and the impact on their families, the pain and anger of a people that [United Nations] officials have described as living under apartheid.”

Basravi concluded, “Our teams regularly faced threats to their safety, and too many have made the ultimate sacrifice for telling stories about people fighting for their freedom,” and, “Al Jazeera has been accused of harming Israeli security, of inciting against Israeli soldiers.” 

“But to quote our bureau chief here, all we’ve been doing is reporting on what the Israeli military has been doing to people in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. And if they stop doing it, we can stop reporting it.”