Daily Times

Al Jazeera will look to pursue all possible legal action “until the end” to challenge Israel’s ban on its operations there, the TV network’s news director told AFP in an interview.

The Qatar-based station was taken off air in Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government voted on Sunday to shut it down over its coverage of the Gaza war. Speaking on Monday, Al Jazeera English news director Salah Nagm said the network would “follow every legal path”, adding: “If there is a possibility of challenging that decision we are going to pursue it until the end.” Under a cabinet decision which Netanyahu said was “unanimous”, Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem offices were shuttered, its equipment confiscated and its team’s accreditations pulled. “The equipment which was confiscated, the loss that we suffered from stopping our broadcast, all of that is subject matter for legal action,” Nagm said.

The Israeli government on Sunday said the order was initially valid for 45 days, with the possibility of an extension. Hours later, screens in Israel carrying Al Jazeera’s Arabic and English channels went blank, apart from a message in Hebrew saying they had “been suspended in Israel”.

‘An action from the 60s’

The shutdown does not apply to the Israeli-occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip, from which Al Jazeera still broadcasts live on Israel’s war with Hamas. Al Jazeera immediately condemned Israel’s decision as “criminal”, saying on social media site X that it “violates the human right to access information”. But Najm downplayed the ban’s impact on Al Jazeera’s coverage of the war and on the public’s ability to access its content, even with its website now blocked in Israel.