Al Jazeera Condemns Netanyahu’s UN Assault on Press Freedom as Threat to Journalists

The network warns that the Israeli prime minister’s condemnation of Al Jazeera at the UN General Assembly endangers the safety of its reporters.

Al Jazeera has forcefully rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attack on the network during his address to the United Nations General Assembly.

In a statement released Friday, Al Jazeera Media Network declared it “categorically rejects” Netanyahu’s remarks, characterizing them as the latest manifestation of Israel’s “sustained campaign against Al Jazeera and its journalists.”

During his UNGA speech on Thursday, in which he assailed critics of Israel’s military operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Netanyahu singled out Al Jazeera, labeling it one of the world’s “toxic media outlets” bent on “brainwashing young minds to hate Israel.”

Al Jazeera asserted that Netanyahu aims to prevent the outlet from “reporting facts from the ground, documenting events, providing context, and ensuring that a diversity of voices and perspectives are heard.”

The network further emphasized that delivering such rhetoric from the UN podium is “a matter of particular concern, given the threat such rhetoric poses to the safety of Al Jazeera journalists working in the field.”

“This rhetoric cannot be separated from the heavy toll borne by Al Jazeera’s journalists in Gaza,” the statement added.

More than 270 journalists have been killed in Gaza during Israel’s offensive. At least 12 of those fatalities were Al Jazeera correspondents.

Al Jazeera noted that it “has lost a number of journalists and camera operators while they were carrying out their work,” adding that some “were subjected to campaigns of incitement and vilification before being targeted.”

According to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, among the more than 73,000 people killed in Gaza, at least 706 were family members of Palestinian journalists.

Israel has repeatedly moved against Al Jazeera and exerted pressure on Qatar.

Two years ago, Israel’s cabinet voted to shut down Al Jazeera’s operations in the country, ordering the immediate closure of its offices and a ban on broadcasts. The move followed the Knesset’s passage of legislation permitting the government to temporarily shutter foreign media outlets deemed a “threat to security.”

“These measures do not target Al Jazeera alone; they also undermine the right of every person to access truthful information and independent journalistic coverage,” Al Jazeera stated on Friday.

The network added that “the role of journalism is to provide the world with facts and context, while respecting the right and ability of individuals to assess sources and form their own opinions.”

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