ISRAEL SAYS IT PLANS TO CLOSE ALJAZEERA’S OFFICES

JERUSALEM: Israel said on Sunday it planned to close the offices of Al-Jazeera in the country, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Arab satellite news broadcaster of incitement.

Netanyahu had said on July 27 that he wanted Al-Jazeera expelled amid tensions over a sensitive Jerusalem holy site.

“Al-Jazeera has become the main tool of Daesh (the Islamic State group), Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran,” communications minister Ayoob Kara, a member of the Druze community from Netanyahu’s Likud party, told a press conference.

He accused the Qatar-based broadcaster of “inciting violence which has provoked losses among the best of our sons”, referring to two Druze policemen who were killed in a July 14 attack near the Al-Aqsa compound in east Jerusalem.

Netanyahu tweeted his congratulations to the minister “who on my instructions took concrete steps to end Al-Jazeera’s incitement” in Israel.

The closure of Al-Jazeera’s offices would come under the remit of security officials.

Israeli authorities would also seek to limit access by Arab citizens to the station’s broadcasts in Arabic.

Meanwhile, an official at Al-Jazeera’s Qatar offices, , who declined to be named, said that the broadcaster “deplores” Israel’s decision and will pursue the matter through legal channels.