Tel Aviv District Court confirms extension of al-Jazeera ban

Today (Thursday), the Tel Aviv District Court decided to confirm the new injunctions issued by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, banning al-Jazeera from broadcasting or reporting from Israel for 45 days.

According to the court's Deputy President Hagai Brenner, "a long series of raw documents were submitted for my reading, in addition to opinions presented to decision makers before making their decision. A significant part of those raw documents establish the existence of a close connection between the terrorist organization Hamas and al-Jazeera and its reporters.

"By the nature of things, this decision cannot include additional details, but the picture that emerges is that al-Jazeera has a number of reporters in the areas of the Gaza Strip (certainly not all and not even most) who have crossed the clear line distinguishing between the legitimate source-journalist relationship and another sort of relationship, and made themselves collaborators and effective partners of the terrorist organization Hamas, while maintaining close ties and mutual sending of messages. Some even exploited their journalistic cover to advance and carry out terrorist attacks."