There was no immediate comment from the channel headquarters. But several Al Jazeera correspondents went on air to give their understanding on how the decision would affect the channel.

Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance.

The extraordinary order, which includes confiscating broadcast equipment, preventing the broadcast of the channel’s reports and blocking its websites, is believed to be the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet.

Al Jazeera went off Israel’s main cable and satellite providers in the hours after the order. However, its website and multiple online streaming links still operated Sunday.

The network has reported the Israeli-Hamas war nonstop since the militants’ initial cross-border attack Oct. 7 and has maintained 24-hour coverage in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s grinding ground offensive that has killed and wounded members of its own staff. While including on-the-ground reporting of the war’s casualties, its Arabic arm often publishes verbatim video statements from Hamas and other militant groups in the region

UPDATED – Israeli authorities raid Al Jazeera after shutdown order

  • Flying SquidMEnglish
    32•7 months ago

    Hiding things from the press is a hell of a lot harder when everyone has an internet-connected photo and video camera in their pocket.

    • @[email protected]English
      28•7 months ago

      True; but it’s made much easier when you’ve destroyed all the infrastructure that keeps those phones/cameras charged and transmits the photos and video.

      Batteries only last so long, and you’ve still gotta be able to send the data somehow.

      • Flying SquidMEnglish
        8•7 months ago

        Batteries can be charged via solar panels and internet can be reached via satellite. I agree, it’s not as easy, but it is still very doable by a lot of people if they have the equipment. If I were Al Jazeera, I would be doing what I could to smuggle that equipment into Gaza.

      • @[email protected]English
        3•7 months ago

        Which is why we need to find a way to get radios and mesh networks to the Palestinian people.

        All this money being spent as if its an ad campaign, we could do a lot more if we could safely get the supplies in and keep them out of Israeli and Hamas hands.

        • Flying SquidMEnglish
          5•7 months ago

          I don’t know if a mesh network would be as good an idea as using satellite internet since all the routers in the mesh network would need to be powered.

          And I don’t necessarily mean Starlink. There are other options, they just have higher latency because they’re in a higher orbit.

        • m-p{3}English
          4•7 months ago

          Something like Briar could be used to exchange messages between devices over Bluetooth, but it still end up using a fair amount of battery which is a problem when you don’t have access to a reliable power grid, and it’s Android-only…

          • @[email protected]English
            3•7 months ago

            I would imagine the people of Palestine with phones are overwhelmingly on android.

            I would imagine most of their internet infrastructure is down though.

            • m-p{3}English
              4•7 months ago

              Yeah… at least you can share the app installer without Internet, and communications done on the mesh can be transmitted online as long as one single node can get Internet access.