Israel closes Al Jazeera office in Ramallah: Everything you need to know | News on the Israel-Palestine conflict

Live television showed heavily armed Israeli soldiers raiding the Al-Jazeera office in the occupied West Bank in Ramallah and ordering office manager Walid al-Omari to close it.

The soldiers ordered all night shift workers in the office to leave the building and told them they were only allowed to take their personal belongings with them.

What happened and why? Here's everything we know:

Who closed the office?

The order came from the Israeli military authority, even though the office was located in Area A, an area designated as being under Palestinian control in the Oslo Accords.

Wait, if Ramallah is under Palestinian control, how can Israel do this?

This is not the first time that Israel has taken action in Area A, defined by the Oslo Accords, where Ramallah is located and where the Palestinian Authority (PA) is based.

A year ago, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, reported that between June and September last year alone, there had been numerous Palestinian casualties as a result of Israeli operations in Area A.

The other two areas in the occupied West Bank are Area B, which on paper is also administered by the Palestinian Authority and shares security control with Israel, and Area C is under full Israeli control.

Regardless of legal jurisdiction, Israel acted with impunity throughout the occupied West Bank.

Why did Israel raid the office?

Israel has often targeted Al Jazeera and its journalists, sometimes going so far as to kill them, including Shireen Abu Akleh, Samer Abudaqa, Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi.

“This is entirely in line with the policy of the State of Israel since 1948… to prevent real news about the Palestinians or about what the State of Israel is doing to the Palestinians… colonising them, arresting them and torturing them,” Rami Khouri, distinguished scholar at the American University of Beirut, told Al Jazeera.

But why did Israel do this?

The closure order accuses Al Jazeera of inciting and supporting “terrorism.”

Khouri said Al Jazeera was “the most important tool for informing the world” about Israel’s violations in Palestinian territory.

What has Israel done to the office?

The entire team that spent the night in the office was told to leave.

They were initially told on camera to leave with their personal belongings and cameras, but ultimately had to leave the cameras in the office.

Al Jazeera's Jivara Budeiri, who was in office at the time of the raid, told Al Jazeera Arabic that the Israeli group that raided the office included engineers, so she feared the attackers had also come to destroy the office's archives.

The soldiers remained in the offices for several hours, during which time one could only see some of them tearing down a large banner of the murdered Arab Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

Is the Al Jazeera team doing well?

No one on the team was injured.

They stood on the street for hours, far away from the office building, unable to approach the building to retrieve their cars.

According to Budeiri of Al Jazeera Arabic, they were also unable to move to cover up the attack because any member of the group who moved was threatened with a laser from an Israeli weapon.

While Israeli soldiers were destroying things like Shireen Abu Akleh's banner at the Al Jazeera office, other soldiers in armored vehicles patrolled the area around the building and the office team could hear gunshots and tear gas grenades being fired from everywhere.

When can the office reopen?

The order is valid for 45 days, but bureau chief al-Omari said he expected it to be automatically extended, as was the case with a civil order issued by Israel in early May to close the Al Jazeera bureau in Israel.

What is the difference between a civil and a military order?

In practice probably nothing, but there are some differences in the form.

Al Jazeera's office in Israel was closed in May after the Israeli parliament passed the so-called “Al Jazeera Law,” which allowed the government to shut down any foreign media outlets deemed to pose a threat to the state for 45 days at a time.

With this justification, numerous inspectors from the Ministry of Communications arrived at Al Jazeera's offices on May 5 and confiscated the equipment. The “temporary shutdown” has since been renewed and is still in effect.

The closure of Ramallah was carried out by an authority that theoretically has no power over Ramallah.

What can the office do about it?

One of the soldiers told the office manager al-Omari that any inquiries should be directed to the military command that had given the order.

Al-Omari told Al Jazeera Arabic by phone that this likely means any appeal will have to go through the military court.

The Israeli military courts operate with an opaque system of “secret evidence” and indefinite administrative detention.

What is the situation now?

Al Jazeera's office is inaccessible to the team and is sealed off by two large metal plates welded over the entrance.