MediaNorth Condemns Banning Of Al Jazeera by Israeli Government.

The Israeli government voted on Sunday 5th May to shut down the operations of Al Jazeera, one of the last remaining international media networks reporting from the war-ravaged Gaza strip.

As a result, Al Jazeera’s offices in Israel were closed, broadcast equipment confiscate, the channel cut off from cable and satellite companies and its websites blocked.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Al Jazeera reporters had ‘harmed Israel’s security and incited against soldiers’, and referred to the outlet as a ‘Hamas mouthpiece’.

Al Jazeera rightly decried the decision and said the accusation that it threatened Israeli security was a ‘dangerous and ridiculous lie’  and was part of Israel’s ‘ongoing suppression of the free press’.

This action by the Israeli government takes place as the Israeli forces begin the forced evacuation of people from Rafah as a prelude to a military assault on the densely packed population there.

In the Spring issue of MediaNorth our front page was on the efforts of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to control critical coverage of the death and destruction by Israel in Gaza. This is their latest action and we strongly condemn it.

Granville Williamms editor MediaNorth