CrossFireArabia
Al Jazeera’s Palestine Bureau Chief Walid al-Omari condemns Israel’s closure of the network’s office in Ramallah, stating:
‘This strategy aims to erase the truth and silence voices that inform the public.’
CrossFireArabia
With heavy guns, Israeli soldiers barged into Al Jazeera office in Ramallah and ordered it shut down. The raid was in the early hours of the morning, Sunday.
Troops raided the office with one soldier reading read out an order to Al Jazeera Bureau Chief Waleed Al Omari.
The soldier said: “This is an order from the court to close the Al Jazeera office for a period of 45 days and I ask you to take all your belongings and cameras and leave this office now.”
Al Omari then asked to see the order and read it out on TV live amidst a force of Israeli soldiers. It stated this is: “…an order concerning the closure of the office of the Al Jazeera Channel for a period of 45 days, and this is a military order issued by the leader of the central region of the Israel army.”
Al Omari added: “It orders us to leave now and immediately this headquarter and take our personal belongings including the cameras…”
The action of the closure by the Israel army soon become trending on the social media with a tweet from the Quds News Network stating “Israeli occupation forces withdraw from the center of Ramallah after closing Al Jazeera office and confiscating its live footage equipment.
Full report was made of the closure on Al Jazeera English with Al Omari saying the Israeli military’s closure order accused the network of “incitement to and support of terrorism”.
The report added: Al Jazeera’s Jivara Budeiri said Israeli forces fired tear gas in the vicinity of the Al Jazeera bureau and the Manara Roundabout in the heart of the occupied West Bank city. She added that Israeli soldiers confiscated their cameras. Budeiri said she feared the military may try to destroy Al Jazeera’s archives, which are stored in the office.
Israel always wanted to shutdown Al Jazeera particularly after its coverage of the war on Gaza following 7 October, 2023. Last May the Benjamin Netanyahu government made a decision to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting in Israel and shutdown its office in East Jerusalem.
This was a decision that was condemned by the Al Jazeera management but to no avail.
The recent decision on Al Jazeera Ramallah office is being called as a “deafening scandal” by the Government Media Office in Gaza and has called in all international organizations to condemn the latest move.
Ever since the Gaza slaughter Israel has killed 173 journalists mainly in the enclave to prevent reporting on the Israeli army’s atrocities that resulted in the killing of 41,400 people, mostly women and children and injury of 95,700 people.
CrossFireArabia
Israeli analysts said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would rather have his forces remain in the Philadelphi corridor on the border with Egypt than recover the living prisoners from the Gaza Strip. They stressed that the Israeli government is pushing to frustrate the ongoing truce negotiations.
According to Channel 12 military affairs correspondent Nir Dvori, the army estimates the six prisoners whose bodies Israel announced were recovered this week may have been killed by Israeli fire.
Dvori said that these prisoners had been held by Hamas for a long time and could have been returned alive. He added: It is crucial to reach a deal because “there are 109 other captives rotting in the tunnels and they can be saved.”
Ohad Hamo, Arab affairs correspondent for Channel 12, downplayed the moral significance of recovering the bodies of the prisoners. He said: “Hamas, historically, pays great attention to soldiers, which is understandable if we look at what happened with soldier Gilad Shalit.”
Netanyahu does not encourage negotiations
In this context, Dana Weiss, a political analyst for Channel 12, said Netanyahu himself said he does not believe there is a possibility of reaching an agreement regarding the prisoners and that he is determined to remain in the Netzarim and Philadelphi axes and he is committed to what guarantees him a return to fighting, stressing this kind of “talk does not encourage Hamas to negotiate.”
Weiss added: “In practice, Netanyahu has not budged on the issue of adhering to Netzarim and Philadelphi, and Egypt has confirmed this is unacceptable and there is a state of frustration among the negotiators and the security services.”
According to Weiss, the Israeli negotiators informed Netanyahu “there is no room for negotiations without showing flexibility on Netzarim and Philadelphi, but he told them that it is a political issue and that if he had to choose between Philadelphi and the prisoners, he would choose the former.”
Talia Danzig, the granddaughter of one of the six prisoners whose bodies were recovered from Gaza, said Netanyahu “has disappointed me repeatedly and I do not expect anything from him, but I expect the people to go to the square of the kidnapped (prisoners) because we do not want to live any longer in this calamity.”
She added to Channel 12: “We do not want to live in this devastation.. We want a deal that will return the prisoners alive in a safe manner without risking the lives of soldiers.”
Commenting on this statement, former army spokesman Ronen Manelis said: “You heard what Danzig said and the people who no longer care about the issue of the prisoners must wake up and return to the streets again.”
Manelis added: “Netanyahu must explain how the Philadelphi corridor became so important while Israel did not think of occupying it until eight months after the war and even if it withdrew from it, it can return to it again and reoccupy it within two days if Hamas rebuilds its capabilities,” noting Israel “delayed occupying this corridor because it was afraid to enter it.”
For her part, Moria Wallberg, a political affairs correspondent for Channel 13, said that the negotiating delegation’s visit to Cairo, scheduled for this week, is now in great doubt due to Netanyahu’s position, which renders the negotiations pointless, according to the head of the prisoners’ file in the army, Major General Nitzan Alon.
Wallberg said Netanyahu informed the negotiating team he knows how to manage negotiations and that he had previously managed them with the workers’ union, and that security officials responded that the labor union negotiations were without a time limit, while the prisoners’ negotiations are under pressure because every day that passes means the death of more of them.
Finally, Yisrael Ziv, former head of the army’s operations unit, said that Israel is doing nothing but retrieving bodies in coffins, noting “Hamas, after retrieving some of the prisoners alive, transferred the rest to places from which it is difficult to rescue them without a deal.”
Ziv concluded by saying: “They [Israeli army] returned six bodies and buried them without any ceremony or respect, and this reflects this government’s handling of the prisoners’ issue,” as stated on Jo24 based on the Al Jazeera Satellite Channel.
CrossFireArabia
Israel is escalating its fighting in the Gaza Strip to improve its position in the Gaza ceasefire and hostage swap talks, it was stated Sunday.
“The Israeli security cabinet recently instructed the military to intensify its operations in Gaza to strengthen Israel’s position in the negotiations,” Walla reported, citing unnamed political sources.
The move coincides with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Israel, where Israeli security officials expect him to put significant pressure on Tel Aviv to reach an agreement with Hamas, according to Walla.
There has been no official Israeli statement on the matter according to the Anadolu news agency.
Ceasefire talks in the Qatari capital of Doha concluded Friday by presenting “a proposal that narrows the gaps” between Israel and Hamas that is consistent with the principles set out by US President Joe Biden on May 31.
Biden said in May that Israel presented a three-phase deal that would end hostilities in Gaza and secure the release of hostages held in the coastal enclave. The plan includes a ceasefire, a hostage-prisoner exchange and the reconstruction of Gaza.
For months, the US, Qatar and Egypt have been trying to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas to ensure a prisoner exchange and ceasefire and allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.
But mediation efforts have been stalled due to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to meet Hamas’s demands to stop the war.
CrossFireArabia
Jordanian military and strategic expert Nidal Abu Zeid said the videoclips broadcast by the Palestinian resistance groups on the methods of managing operations, ambushes, and targeting the occupation forces, prove they are still cohesive and their command and control system is capable of continuing and inflicting losses on the Israeli occupation forces.
Abu Zeid added the resistance operations are managed by an integrated system. He said the videoclips show there is a commander for the operation who directs, then there is the target reconnaissance based on intelligence gathering with another team videoing and photographing the operations.
These elements confirm such a system in the works is still fine, stressing the Israeli occupation forces were forced to retreat and not withdraw from Al-Sinaa Street in Tal Al-Hawa after the ambush that caused much losses in reference to the latest Israeli military actions.
Abu Zeid said this prompted the occupation forces to withdraw not just from Tal Al Hawa but from the entire northern Gaza Strip according to Jordan 24.
Abu Zaid pointed out most of the destructive vehicles that appeared in the circulated clips are M113 troop carriers, maintaining that this reinforces the theory that the occupation resorted to using this type of old carriers that were discontinued in 2006 due to the significant losses of modern Tiger troop carriers in the Israeli army.
He indicated the M113 carriers are not as efficient, effective and armored which also explains the high losses among the Israeli soldiers as the Israeli army announced.
That the means the loss curve is still rising between 10 to 20 soldiers per day, which imposes challenges on the occupation army in terms of manpower resources.
Abu Zeid stated the statements of Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi about the urgent need to recruit new elements into the army and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant statements about the necessity of recruiting ultra-Orthodox Jews who are exempt from military service confirm the magnitude of the losses the army is suffering daily.
Abu Zeid continued the Israeli combat doctrine is based on three pillars: Deterrence, early warning, and rapid resolution) pointing out the Palestinian resistance groups have succeeded in stripping the enemy of these and which explains the clear imbalance in the military operations and the occupation’s inability to take the upper hand.
Regarding the ongoing negotiations in Doha, Abu Zeid said Netanyahu is trying to booby-trap these talks and obstruct their progress by imposing conditions related to guarantees for the resumption of military action at any time.
These aim at preventing the return of the displaced to northern Gaza, and evade the issue of negotiating with the Egyptian side on the status of the Philadelphia axis, which will create further conflict between the government and the military generals and leaders of the security services.
