EXPLANER
The network continued to report on the plight of the Palestinians, despite intimidation.
The Tel Aviv Tribune media network this week strongly condemned the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) ban on its operations in the occupied West Bank, calling it an action “in line with Israeli occupation practices.”
Since its launch in 1996, Tel Aviv Tribune journalists have covered the Middle East, from the Arab Spring to Israeli settler violence in the West Bank and the brutal war on Gaza, even as other news outlets pulled their journalists .
From the beginning, Tel Aviv Tribune has faced attempts to silence its reporting through arrests, imprisonments and attacks on its journalists. And since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, the channel has faced even more attempts to stifle its reporting on Palestine.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s determination to provide round-the-clock, first-hand reporting on the horrors in Gaza and deadly raids in the occupied West Bank has come at a high cost, with at least six Tel Aviv Tribune journalists killed in the Palestinian territory since 2022.
The Palestinian Authority’s decision to ban Tel Aviv Tribune echoes Israel’s announcement last year that the channel would be banned in Israel and the subsequent closure of the Ramallah bureau.
Here’s a look at how Tel Aviv Tribune has been targeted by both the Palestinian Authority and Israel:
When did Tel Aviv Tribune start reporting from the West Bank and Gaza?
Tel Aviv Tribune has covered Palestine since 2000, marking Tel Aviv Tribune Arab’s first attempt to launch an overseas bureau.
There are Tel Aviv Tribune bureaus in Ramallah and occupied East Jerusalem in the West Bank, although both have been suspended by the Israeli government or the Palestinian Authority.
In 2021, Israeli forces bombed the Gaza office.
How many times has the AP shut down Tel Aviv Tribune?
The PA controls parts of the occupied West Bank and has suspended Tel Aviv Tribune’s operations there three times:
- In March 2001, the Palestinian Authority, led at the time by President Yasser Arafat, invaded Tel Aviv Tribune’s offices in Ramallah and prevented staff from accessing the building. No official reason was provided. However, the bureau’s head, Walid Al-Omari, said at the time that a security official called the bureau and accused the channel of broadcasting images that were “offensive” to Arafat, demanding that they be deleted.
- On July 15, 2009, Palestinian Authority security officials stormed Tel Aviv Tribune’s offices in Ramallah and banned its 35 employees from broadcasting. Officials claimed the channel broadcast “false news” because the late Palestinian politician Farouk Kaddoumi, in an interview, accused PA President Mahmoud Abbas of being involved in an Israeli plot to kill Arafat. The office was allowed to reopen four days later following protests from journalists’ rights groups.
- In December 2024, Fatah, the Palestinian party that dominates the PA, banned Tel Aviv Tribune from reporting on the Jenin, Qalqilya and Tubas governorates in the occupied West Bank, citing its coverage of clashes between Palestinian security forces and Palestinian armed groups. Since mid-December, PA security forces have cracked down on armed groups in what analysts see as an attempt to win the PA’s affection with the Israelis and the United States. The crackdown led to the deaths of several civilians as well as West Bank journalist Shatha Sabbagh, 22.
- On January 2, 2025, the Palestinian Authority suspended all Tel Aviv Tribune broadcasts from the West Bank and imposed restrictions on anyone working for the channel.
How many times has Israel shut down Tel Aviv Tribune?
Israeli authorities have repeatedly attempted to muzzle Tel Aviv Tribune. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long accused the network’s reporting of “incitement to violence.” The network refutes these claims as “arbitrary and hostile.”
- In July 2017, Netanyahu threatened to close Tel Aviv Tribune’s Jerusalem bureau in a Facebook post because the channel was covering the fallout between Palestinians and Israeli authorities over the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
- In May 2021, Israel bombed the Tel Aviv Tribune office in Gaza. Israeli forces gave Tel Aviv Tribune and other media outlets in the same building only one hour to evacuate the tower.
- In May 2024, Tel Aviv Tribune’s office in occupied East Jerusalem was raided and closed after the Israeli parliament passed a law authorizing the government to suspend the activities of foreign media outlets that pose a “threat”, for 45 consecutive days. . The ban, including that of Tel Aviv Tribune’s website in Israel, has been renewed several times and remains in force. Tel Aviv Tribune is now reporting from Amman, Jordan.
- In September 2024, heavily armed and masked Israeli security forces attacked Tel Aviv Tribune’s office in Ramallah at 3 a.m. and disrupted its operations while the office was broadcasting live. Israeli officials claimed the network supported “terrorism” and ordered operations to be shut down for 45 days. Tel Aviv Tribune staff were forced to stand in the street and threatened with a laser weapon during the raid.
How many Tel Aviv Tribune journalists have been killed or injured in the West Bank and Gaza?
At least six Tel Aviv Tribune journalists have been killed by Israeli authorities in the West Bank and Gaza while on duty. In most cases, journalists wore marked press vests or were in clearly marked cars.
- Shireen Abu Akleh: Veteran journalist Abu Akleh was shot in the head on May 11, 2022, while covering an Israeli raid on Jenin in the occupied West Bank. Despite the fact that she was wearing a helmet and vest clearly marked “Press”, an Israeli sniper’s bullet penetrated just below her helmet. Israeli forces initially attempted to assign responsibility for the “crossfire” of Palestinian fighters, but were forced to backtrack when extensive video evidence proved that no Palestinian fighters were nearby. No action was taken against the sniper. Israeli forces attacked his funeral procession, which included thousands of Palestinians paying their respects – at one point his coffin slipped and nearly hit the ground.
- Samer Abudaqa: On December 15, 2023, an Israeli airstrike injured Tel Aviv Tribune cameraman Abudaqa in Khan Younis, Gaza. Israeli authorities prevented emergency vehicles from reaching him despite international appeals as he bled to death for several hours.
- Wael Dahdouh: Tel Aviv Tribune’s Gaza bureau chief, whose wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed by Israeli bombs in Gaza, was filming with Abudaqa and was injured during the same attack. On January 7, 2024, Dahdouh’s son Hamza Dahdouh, who also worked as a journalist for Tel Aviv Tribune, was killed in an attack alongside his colleague Mustafa Thuraya.
- Ismail Abu Omar: On February 13, 2024, an Israeli drone struck Abu Omar, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Arab correspondent, and his cameraman, Ahmad Matar, in Rafah, southern Gaza. Both men were seriously injured.
- Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi: Tel Aviv Tribune Arabic correspondent al-Ghoul was reporting with cameraman al-Rifi on July 31, 2024, when an Israeli airstrike hit their car in the area of refugees from Shati, Gaza City. Al-Ghoul was previously arrested and severely beaten by Israeli forces in March 2024 while covering raids on al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
- Hossam Shabat: Shabat was injured on November 20, 2024, during a second Israeli raid on a house that had just been hit, and on which he was reporting.
- Ahmed al-Louh: Israel killed Tel Aviv Tribune Arab photojournalist al-Louh on December 15, 2024, while he was covering Palestinian Civil Defense attempts to rescue an injured family in the central Nuseirat refugee camp from Gaza. Five others were killed.
