The Israeli government announced today that revokes the accreditations of journalists from the Al Jazeera television network, four months after the Qatar network was banned from broadcasting and its office in Israel was closed.

The Government Press Office (GPO) “revokes the accreditations of Al Jazeera journalists working in Israel,” this government body, which is also responsible for issuing journalist accreditation, underlined in a statement.

Al Jazeera is a “media that spreads false contentincluding inciting hatred against Israelis and Jews, and which constitutes a threat to IDF soldiers,” the Israeli military, the GPO added.

Speaking to AFP, Walid al-Omari, head of Al Jazeera’s Israel and Palestinian Territories bureau, said he had not been officially informed of the decision announced by the GPO. “We’ll see when that happens,” he said. According to him, 14 Al Jazeera employees, all Israeli nationals, have this accreditation from the GPO.

GPO accreditation is not required to work as a journalist in Israel, but without it, it is almost impossible to gain access to Parliament, ministries, or military infrastructure.

According to a source familiar with the matter, only four Al Jazeera employees, journalists, are affected by the revocation of GPO credentials, a measure that does not apply to the network’s producers and photojournalists.

In early April, the Israeli Parliament passed a law that essentially targeted only Al Jazeera, allowing for a temporary ban on foreign media “undermining the security of the state” in Israel.

Based on this law, the Israeli government decided on April 5 to ban the network from broadcasting in Israel and close its offices there for a renewable 45-day period. The ban was extended again on Wednesday by a Tel Aviv court, but does not affect the network’s activities in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli authorities have publicly criticized Al Jazeera’s news coverage in Israel and the Palestinian Territories for several years. These criticisms have intensified since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7.

The Israeli military has repeatedly accused Qatar TV journalists working in the Gaza Strip of being “terrorist agents” linked to Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

The network denies these accusations and accuses Israel of systematically targeting its groups in the Gaza Strip. Four of Al Jazeera’s journalists have been killed there since the start of the war.