Al Jazeera in Palestine: A timeline of coverage against all odds

EXPLAINER

The network has continued to report on the plight of Palestinians, despite intimidation.

Al Jazeera Media Network has strongly condemned the Palestinian Authority (PA) ban on its operations in the occupied West Bank this week, calling it an action that “aligns with Israeli occupation practises”.

Since its launch in 1996, Al Jazeera’s reporters have covered the Middle East, from the Arab Spring to Israeli settler violence in the West Bank and the brutal war on Gaza, even when other news organisations pulled their journalists out.

From the start, Al Jazeera has faced attempts to silence its reporting through arrests, imprisonment and attacks on its journalists. And since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, the channel has faced even more attempts to stifle its reporting on Palestine.

Al Jazeera’s determination to provide round-the-clock, firsthand reporting on the horrors in Gaza and the deadly raids in the occupied West Bank has come at a high cost, with at least six Al Jazeera journalists killed in the Palestinian territory since 2022.

The PA’s decision to ban Al Jazeera mirrors Israel’s announcement last year that the channel would be banned in Israel and then its closure of the bureau in Ramallah.

Here’s a breakdown of how Al Jazeera has been targeted by both the PA and Israel:

When did Al Jazeera start reporting from the West Bank and Gaza?

Al Jazeera has been reporting in Palestine since 2000, marking Al Jazeera Arabic’s first attempt to launch a foreign bureau.

There are Al Jazeera bureaus in Ramallah and occupied East Jerusalem in the West Bank, although both have now been suspended by the Israeli government or the PA.

In 2021, Israeli forces bombed the Gaza bureau.

How many times has the PA shut Al Jazeera down?

The PA controls parts of the occupied West Bank and has suspended Al Jazeera’s operations there three times:

• In March 2001, the PA, led at the time by President Yasser Arafat, invaded Al Jazeera’s Ramallah offices and prevented staff from accessing the building. No official reasons were provided. However, bureau chief Walid Al-Omari said at the time that a security official had called the bureau and accused the network of airing footage “offensive” to Arafat, demanding that it be removed.
• On July 15, 2009, PA security officials stormed Al Jazeera’s Ramallah offices and banned its 35 employees from broadcasting. Officials alleged the network had broadcast “false information” because late Palestinian politician Farouk Kaddoumi, in an interview, accused PA President Mahmoud Abbas of involvement in an Israeli plot to kill Arafat. The office was allowed to reopen four days later following an outcry from journalists’ rights groups.

• In December 2024, Fatah, the Palestinian party that dominates the PA, banned Al Jazeera from reporting from the governorates of Jenin, Qalqilya and Tubas in the occupied West Bank, citing its coverage of clashes between the Palestinian security forces and Palestinian armed groups. Since mid-December, PA security forces have cracked down on the armed groups in what analysts say is an attempt to endear the PA to the Israelis and the United States. The crackdown has led to the killing of several civilians as well as the West Bank journalist Shatha Sabbagh, 22.
• On January 2, 2025, the PA suspended all Al Jazeera broadcasts from the West Bank and placed restrictions on anyone working for the network.

How many times has Israel shut Al Jazeera down?

Israeli authorities have repeatedly attempted to muzzle Al Jazeera. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long accused the network’s coverage of “inciting violence”. The network refutes these claims as “arbitrary and hostile”.

• In July 2017, Netanyahu threatened to close Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem office in a Facebook post because the network covered a fallout between Palestinians and Israeli authorities over Al-Aqsa Mosque.
• In May 2021, Israel bombed Al Jazeera’s Gaza office. Israeli forces gave Al Jazeera and other media organisations in the same building just one hour to evacuate the tower.
• In May 2024, Al Jazeera’s occupied East Jerusalem bureau was raided and closed after the Israeli parliament passed a law allowing the government to suspend the operations of foreign media that pose a “threat”, for 45 days at a time. The ban, including a ban on Al Jazeera’s website in Israel, has been renewed multiple times and remains in place. Al Jazeera now reports from Amman, Jordan.
• In September 2024, heavily armed and masked Israeli security forces raided Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah at 3am and shuttered its operations as the bureau was broadcasting live. Israeli officials alleged that the network supported “terrorism” and ordered operations to be closed for 45 days. Al Jazeera staff were forced to stand on the street and were threatened with a laser weapon during the raid.

How many Al Jazeera journalists have been killed or injured in the West Bank and Gaza?

At least six Al Jazeera journalists have been killed by Israeli authorities in the West Bank and Gaza while on duty. In most cases, the journalists were wearing marked press vests or were in clearly marked cars.

• Shireen Abu Akleh: Veteran journalist Abu Akleh was shot and killed by a bullet to the head on May 11, 2022, while reporting on an Israeli raid on Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. Despite the fact she was wearing a helmet and a vest clearly marked with “Press”, the bullet from an Israeli sniper penetrated just below her helmet. Israeli forces at first tried to blame “crossfire” from Palestinian fighters but were forced to backtrack when ample video evidence proved no Palestinian fighters were nearby. No action has been taken against the sniper. Israeli forces attacked her funeral procession attended by thousands of Palestinians paying their respects – at one point causing her coffin to slip and nearly hit the ground.
• Samer Abudaqa: On December 15, 2023, an Israeli air attack injured Al Jazeera cameraman Abudaqa in Khan Younis, Gaza. Israeli officials prevented emergency vehicles from reaching him despite international pleas as he bled out over several hours.
• Wael Dahdouh: Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, whose wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed by Israeli bombs on Gaza, was filming with Abudaqa and was injured in the same attack. On January 7, 2024, Dahdouh’s son, Hamza Dahdouh, who also worked as a journalist for Al Jazeera, was killed in an attack alongside his colleague, Mustafa Thuraya.
• Ismail Abu Omar: On February 13, 2024, an Israeli drone hit Abu Omar, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent, and his cameraman, Ahmad Matar, in Rafah, southern Gaza. The two men were critically injured.
• Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi: Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent al-Ghoul was reporting with cameraman al-Rifi on July 31, 2024, when an Israeli air raid hit their car in the Shati refugee area of Gaza City. Al-Ghoul had previously been detained and severely beaten by Israeli forces in March 2024 as he covered raids on the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
• Hossam Shabat: Shabat was injured on November 20, 2024, during a second Israeli raid on a house that had just been hit, and that he was reporting on.
• Ahmed al-Louh: Israel killed Al Jazeera Arabic photojournalist al-Louh on December 15, 2024, while he was covering attempts by the Palestinian Civil Defence to rescue an injured family in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. Five others were killed.