Netanyahu's cabinet votes to shut Al Jazeera's Israel operations

Israel’s cabinet approved a decision to shut down Al Jazeera’s broadcasts out of the Jewish state in an unprecedented step to terminate the local operation of an international media outlet.

Several ministers from Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party abstained from the vote and criticized its timing, underlining escalating tensions between the various factions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Gantz’s party said that while it supports shutting down Qatari-owned Al Jazeera, Israel’s war cabinet had agreed to postpone any decision at the request of security officials, including the head of Mossad, to avoid harming cease-fire negotiation efforts now underway in Egypt.

Israel and Hamas, through intermediaries, continue to work toward a deal that would involve the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Qatar has been a dominant mediator since the war in Gaza broke out following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.

The idea of shutting down the news channel has been circulating in Netanyahu’s cabinet, comprised mostly of hard-right, nationalist and Jewish Orthodox parties, since the early days of war.

Al Jazeera was blamed by Israel for what were termed false reports that heavily relied on what was thought to be Hamas propaganda.

In late March, the channel ran a story claiming that Israeli soldiers had raped and murdered women at Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital, which the Israel Defense Forces denied. It was later removed from all of Al Jazeera’s platforms.

A law allowing Al Jazeera as well as other foreign media outlets to be shuttered in Israel was approved by the nation’s parliament, the Knesset, in early April.

It would give Israel’s premier the power to instruct the communications ministry to act against any foreign media entity deemed to be “harming the country,” pending the opinion of at least one security official and the approval of the cabinet or security cabinet.

The media outlet can then be subject to a range of actions, including:

—shutting down its offices in Israel

—confiscation of broadcast equipment

—prevention of broadcasts by the channel’s reporters

—removal of the channel from Israeli cable and satellite companies

—blocking of its websites in Israel.

“Al Jazeera harmed Israel’s security, actively participated in the Oct. 7 massacre, and incited against IDF soldiers,” Netanyahu said when the law was passed. “It is time to remove the voice of Hamas from our country.”

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre criticized the move at the time as “a concerning step.” The U.S. supports the work of journalists around the world, including those working in Gaza, she said.