Al Jazeera has been closed in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Achi-News

Sunday’s extraordinary order, which includes confiscating broadcasting equipment, preventing the channel from broadcasting its reports and blocking its websites, is believed to be the first time Israel has ever shut down a foreign news outlet.

Al Jazeera dropped from Israel’s main cable provider in the hours after the order. However, the website and its streaming links across several online platforms were still live on Sunday (early Monday AEST).

While it includes on-the-ground reporting on the war dead, its Arab arm often publishes verbatim video statements from Hamas and other militant groups in the region, drawing Netanyahu’s ire.

“Al-Jazeera reporters harmed Israel’s security and incited against soldiers,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

“The time has come to remove the Hamas trumpet from our country.”

Al-Jazeera issued a statement in which it vowed that it would “act through all available legal channels through international legal institutions in order to protect its rights and that of journalists, as well as the public’s right to information.”

“Israel’s ongoing suppression of the free press, seen as an effort to hide its actions in the Gaza Strip, is in violation of international and humanitarian law,” the network said.

“Israel’s direct targeting and killing of journalists, arrests, intimidation and threats will not deter Al Jazeera from its commitment to coverage, while more than 140 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the beginning of the war in Gaza.”

The Israeli government has taken action against individual reporters over the decades since its establishment in 1948, but generally allows a tumultuous media scene that includes foreign bureaus from around the world, even from Arab countries.

That changed with a law passed last month that, according to Netanyahu’s office, allows the government to act against a foreign channel seen as “harming the state.”

In a statement from Netanyahu’s office, it was stated that according to a law passed last month, the government can act against a foreign channel that is seen as “hurting the country”.

The Israeli media reported that the vote allows Israel to block the channel from operating in the country for 45 days, according to the decision.

Immediately after the announcement, Al Jazeera’s English arm began broadcasting a pre-recorded message by one of its reporters from a hotel the channel has used for months in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope will one day be their future state.

“They are also banning any device – that includes my mobile phone,” reporter Imran Khan said.

“If I use it to do any kind of news gathering, then the Israelis can just confiscate it.”

The ban does not seem to have affected the channel’s activities in the occupied West Bank or the Gaza Strip, which Israel controls but is not sovereign Israeli territory.

The decision threatens to increase tensions with Qatar as the Doha government plays a central role in mediating efforts to stop the war in Gaza, along with Egypt and the US.

Qatar has strained relations with Netanyahu especially since he made comments suggesting that Qatar is not putting enough pressure on Hamas to get it to budge on its terms for a cease-fire agreement. Qatar hosts Hamas leaders in exile.

The parties appear to be close to reaching an agreement, but several previous rounds of talks have ended without agreement.

In a statement on Sunday, Hamas condemned the Israeli government’s order, and called on international organizations to take action against Israel.

Shortly after the government’s decision, cabinet members from the National Unity Party criticized its timing, saying it “could sabotage efforts to end the negotiations and stems from political considerations.” The party stated that in general it supports the decision.

These relations deteriorated further following the outbreak of Israel’s war against Hamas on October 7, when the militant group carried out a cross-border attack in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage.

Since then, the Israeli military campaign in Gaza has killed over 34,000 people, according to local health officials there, who do not break down figures for civilians and fighters.

In December, an Israeli strike killed an Al Jazeera cameraman as he reported on the war in southern Gaza. In the same attack, the head of the channel’s Gaza bureau, Vael Dehdoh, was injured.

In 2017, Israel threatened to revoke the credentials of an Al Jazeera reporter after an interview surfaced in which the reporter expressed support for the Palestinian “resistance”.

Al Jazeera is one of the few international media outlets left in Gaza throughout the war, broadcasting bloody scenes of airstrikes and overcrowded hospitals and accusing Israel of massacres. Israel accuses Al Jazeera of collaborating with Hamas.

Israel accuses Al Jazeera, which is funded by the Qatari government, of collaborating with Hamas. However, criticism of the channel is not new. The U.S. government singled out the transmitter during the U.S. occupation of Iraq after its 2003 invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and broadcast videos of late al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

Al Jazeera has been shut down or blocked by other governments in the Middle East. These include Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain during a years-long boycott of Doha by the countries over a political dispute that ended in 2021.

In 2013, the Egyptian authorities raided a luxury hotel used by Al Jazeera as an operating base after the military takeover following mass demonstrations against President Mohamed Morsi. The channel was apparently targeted because of its constant coverage of the Muslim Brotherhood protests over Morsi’s ouster.

Three Al Jazeera staff members – Australian Peter Gersta, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian producer Bahar Mohamed – received 10-year prison terms, but were released in 2015 following widespread international criticism.