Israel announced on Thursday that it was revoking the press credentials of four Al Jazeera journalists working inside the country.
“This is a media outlet that disseminates false content, which includes incitement against Israelis and Jews and constitutes a threat to IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers,” Government Press Office Director Nitzan Chen said in a statement.
Journalists in Israel are not required to have a Government Press Office card, but it is difficult to access parliament or government ministries without one. The statement said the use of the cards by the journalists could “jeopardize state security at this time of military emergency.”
The directive will apply to four full-time Al Jazeera journalists who are either Israeli citizens or Palestinian residents of annexed east Jerusalem, according to Agence France-Presse. The remainder of Al Jazeera’s staff in the country — including video producers and photographers — will be able to keep their credentials because the government considers they are not actively producing content.
Al Jazeera did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment. But Walid Omary, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief for the Palestinian territories, told AFP that the Israeli government had not yet notified the news outlet of the decision.
Israel has accused Al Jazeera of bias in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, and the military has accused the Qatari-owned broadcaster’s journalists of being “terrorist agents” affiliated with Hamas in Gaza.
Al Jazeera has rejected those accusations and said the Israeli government and military disproportionately target its reporters.
Media access is restricted in Gaza, and Israel said early in the war that it could not guarantee the safety of journalists.
Media watchdogs say that journalists have an important role to play in covering the conflict, and that as civilians they should not be targeted.
Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and captured about 250 hostages in their October 7 attack that precipitated the war. Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. In May, Israel estimated the death toll at 30,000 and said most of the dead were combatants.
Among the civilian casualties are at least 116 journalists and media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ. Included in that number are at least four journalists who worked for Al Jazeera.
The media watchdog says the Israel-Hamas war is the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ started to keep records in 1992.
On Thursday, two U.N. experts accused Israel of attacking journalists in the occupied West Bank as a way to block coverage of alleged war crimes.
“We strongly denounce the attacks and harassment of journalists in the illegally occupied West Bank, which are nothing but crude attempts by the Israeli army to block independent reporting on potential war crimes,” Irene Khan, the special rapporteur on free expression, and Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said in a statement.
There have been at least three incidents already this month in which Israeli security forces fired live ammunition at journalists or their vehicles while they were reporting on military operations or civilian casualties, the statement said.
“It is deeply disturbing to see Israeli soldiers in the West Bank replicating the same disdain for the safety of journalists as in Gaza in blatant violation of international law,” the U.N. experts added in the statement.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment about the U.N. statement.
Israel has taken other steps against Al Jazeera.
In May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his Cabinet had unanimously decided to shut down the outlet’s broadcasts over national security concerns. The channel went off the air in Israel shortly afterward, and the outlet’s websites have also been blocked.
Some information for this report came from Agence-France Presse.
