Cable TV operator Hot shut down Al Jazeera's English and Arabic broadcasts this afternoon, although the station's Arabic and English websites remained operational.

Al Jazeera broadcasts can also continue to be watched live on the YouTube social network in both languages.

Today, Prime Minister Netanyahu's government approved a measure to close Qatar's Al Jazeera news channel, accusing it of broadcasting anti-Israel incitement.

The Israeli authorities have already entered the Al Jazeera premises to implement the government decision.

"Inspectors from the Ministry of Communications, supported by the Israeli police, are currently occupying Al Jazeera's offices in Jerusalem and confiscating the channel's equipment," Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi reported on his X social network account.

The Islamist group Hamas has already reacted, regretting that the Israeli government unanimously voted to close Al Jazeera broadcasts, considering the decision the culmination of a declared war against journalists, in a conflict in which more than a hundred media professionals have already died.

"It is a flagrant violation of freedom of the press and a repressive and retaliatory action against Al Jazeera's professional role in exposing the crimes of the occupation," Hamas said in an official statement, in which it appeals to the international community to respect human and press rights.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights denounced the order to suspend Al Jazeera and urged the Israeli government to revoke its decision.

"We regret the government's decision to close Al Jazeera in Israel," the office said on its X social network account after learning of the Israeli government's order.

In the message, the United Nations agency stresses that "free and independent media are essential to ensure transparency and accountability" and even more so at this time, "given the restrictions on information coming from Gaza".

"Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. We urge the Israeli government to revoke the ban," the note concludes.

The Israeli government's decision is protected by a law on foreign media, approved in April by the Israeli parliament, and now denounced before the Israeli Supreme Court by the NGO Association for Civil Rights, which considers it an attack on freedom of expression.

This legislation authorises the Israeli government to order the country's television broadcasters to stop broadcasting Al Jazeera, to close the television network's offices in Israel, and to confiscate the channel's equipment, including mobile phones, and block access to its website for a minimum period of 45 days, which can be extended.

The NGO Reporters Without Borders has already condemned the decision and calls for the immediate suspension of this "censorship law" which represents "a terrible precedent" for the exercise of journalism in Gaza and is part of Israel's effort "to silence the channel by all means for its coverage of the reality of the fate of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank".

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