Israelis and Palestinians have been glued to the news since the October 7 Hamas massacre. But while Israelis usually watch local news on one of the four Hebrew-language channels or international stations like CNN, Arabic speakers all over the world are most likely to tune into to Al Jazeera. According to its website, Al Jazeera, which is headquartered in Qatar, broadcasts in more than 150 countries to more than 430 million people in both Arabic and English. With its online presence, the TV channel reaches more than one billion people a year.
“I was in Oxford last week and I watched a lot of Al Jazeera,” Alon Liel, the former director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told The Jerusalem Report. “They cover the war 23 and a half hours out of every 24. It’s basically full-time coverage and much more than the BBC.”
He said there is almost no coverage of Israel’s viewpoint or interviews with Israeli government officials, although he says they do interview individual Israelis. Liel has been on air five or six times since the war began. The Al Jazeera bureau in Jerusalem denied my request for an interview.
Al Jazeera on the ground in Gaza
Al Jazeera is one of the few outlets that have their own reporters on the ground in Gaza. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 99 journalists were killed in 2023; some 72 of them killed while reporting on Israel’s war in Gaza, many of them freelancers.
Israel has claimed that several of the network’s reporters are actually Hamas operatives, a claim that Al Jazeera denies. For example, Ismail Abu Omar, who was wounded in an Israeli airstrike near southern Gaza’s Rafah in mid-February, has been flown to Qatar for treatment. A cameraman for Al Jazeera was also wounded.
Al Jazeera said Abu Omar’s right leg was blown off in an Israeli drone strike, and doctors are trying to save his left leg. Israeli army spokesman Lt.-Col. Avichay Adraee said Abu Omar served as a deputy commander in Hamas’s East Khan Yunis battalion. He said that on October 7, Abu Omar infiltrated into Israel and filmed during Hamas’s attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Al Jazeera rejected the allegations and said that Israel targeted Abu Omar.
“The network condemns the accusations against its journalists and recalls Israel’s long record of lies and fabrication of evidence through which it seeks to hide its heinous crimes,” Al Jazeera said in a statement. “Al Jazeera’s employment policies stipulate that employees are not to engage in any political affiliations that may affect their professionalism.”
Israel has long said that Al Jazeera is not an independent news service, and there have been growing calls to close the network’s offices in Israel.
“The Qatar-based Al Jazeera television network is an evil empire,” wrote columnist David Weinberg recently in The Jerusalem Post. “It glorifies Hamas, including its ‘heroic’ massacres of October 7 and ongoing ‘resistance’ against Israel and all forms of Iranian proxy terrorism against Israel. It aids Hamas by reporting on IDF forces concentrated along the Gaza border. It is actively drumming up Ramadan terrorism against Israelis, too.”
Al Jazeera is based in Qatar and funded by the government. The fact that Qatar is actively engaged in negotiations for the release of the more than 100 Israeli hostages that Hamas is still holding in Gaza means that it is unlikely that Israel will make any moves to close Al Jazeera.
“We are in a delicate situation,” said Barak Bouks, a senior research fellow at the Europa Institute at Bar-Ilan University.
Al Jazeera is watched throughout the Arab world and has a lot of influence, he said. For example, on October 17 a missile landed in the courtyard of the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Hamas said it was an Israeli fired rocket and that some 500 people were killed. Israel insisted that it was not responsible, and after weeks of investigation most international news outlets concluded that Israel was not responsible and that the missile was fired from Gaza and had fallen short. In addition, the number of dead was in the dozens, not 500. Yet Al Jazeera continued to report on the “Al Ahli massacre” for weeks.
Israeli outlets including Channels 11 (Kan), 12 (Keshet), 13 (Reshet) and the right-leaning Channel 14 have also focused on Israeli deaths in the war and Israeli experience. They have also run a banner with the war’s slogan “Yachad Nenatzeach” (“Together We Will Win”). At the same time, there is coverage of the destruction and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as well as close coverage of Hamas.
“Al Jazeera is totally committed to Qatar which is pro-Hamas,” Bouks said. “Even if they have interviews with Israelis or families of hostages, the presentation is 100 percent Hamas. There is no impartiality.”
The Arabic Al Jazeera channel began broadcasting in 1996, and the English-language channel 10 years later. Over the years the channels have become more influential, especially as Al Jazeera English has hired journalists from the BBC and CNN.
“They are very professional. The people on the ground are good photographers – it’s not amateurs,” Liel said. “But they are also hostile to Israel and adding to Israel’s problems in The Hague [where the court is hearing a case against Israel]. Al Jazeera has a share in undermining Israel’s standing.”■