Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his Cabinet has unanimously decided to close broadcaster Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel, but did not say when the policy would go into effect.
The move came after Israeli lawmakers recently approved a new media law – widely referred to as the “Al Jazeera law” – that gives the government powers to ban foreign broadcasters if they are deemed a risk to state security.
Netanyahu announced the Cabinet decision in a post on X, formerly Twitter, in which he called Al Jazeera “the hate channel.”
The Israeli government has accused Al Jazeera, which is based in the Gulf emirate of Qatar, of biased reporting on the ongoing war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera has reported extensively on the catastrophic situation in the Palestinian territory and shown images of death and destruction that are rarely seen on Israeli television stations.
It has rejected allegations of bias and, in the past, accused Netanyahu of spreading “new lies and inflammatory slanders” against the network.
Al Jazeera has also accused the Israeli military of deliberately targeting journalists on several occasions.
