Knesset extends Al Jazeera ban for two more years

The order allows the closure of foreign media outlets that harm state security.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The Knesset on Monday extended by two years the temporary order known as the Al Jazeera law, which allows the state to shut down hostile foreign broadcasting organizations operating in Israel.

The law grants the communications minister — with the approval of the prime minister and defense minister — the authority to act against foreign media outlets whose activities, as determined by security officials, pose a real threat to state security or provide assistance to the enemy during wartime.

The emergency legislation is widely known as the Al Jazeera law, reflecting its primary target: the Qatar-backed news network, which Israeli officials say has long exhibited extreme anti-Israel bias and openly supported and incited Palestinian terrorism.

The law was first approved in May 2024, at the height of the Gaza war, after several Al Jazeera reporters were exposed as Hamas soldiers.

Five months later, the IDF recovered documents in Gaza such as personnel records and payslips proving that six additional journalists employed by the network were active members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Following the law’s passage, Israeli authorities raided Al Jazeera’s offices, confiscated broadcasting equipment, stopped its cable and satellite transmissions in Israel, and blocked access to its websites.

Because of how the temporary order was drafted, it required repeated renewals over the past 18 months. Monday’s extension allows for a longer proscription period.

Explanatory notes accompanying the vote stated that, given Israel’s ongoing multi-front war, the state requires effective tools to combat hostile propaganda masquerading as journalism.

“It’s impossible for a foreign media body to exploit freedom of expression to harm Israel’s security and endanger human lives,” said MK Ariel Kallner during the debate.

Opposition lawmakers objected that the extension undermines press freedom and democratic norms.

The bill passed 22–10, but remains a stopgap measure. A permanent version of the law, submitted earlier this month to the Knesset’s National Security Committee, was blocked by the committee’s legal adviser.

This was despite a Shin Bet representative telling a closed committee session that Al Jazeera’s reporting from Israel had contributed to at least four terror attacks in eastern Jerusalem in which Israelis were injured.

The legal adviser demanded several revisions, including limiting bans to two years, requiring the government to justify extensions before a judge every 90 days, shifting the burden of proof away from the media outlet, and exempting social media accounts from the ban.

The bill’s sponsors, Likud MKs Amit Halevi and Ariel Kallner, said such changes would “empty the law of all substance” and refused to amend it, leaving the permanent legislation stalled in committee.