RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) — Armed and masked Israeli forces raided the office of global news channel Al Jazeera in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and issued a 45-day closure order.

It was the latest salvo in a long-running feud between the Arab broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government which has worsened during the war in Gaza.

Since the war began on October 7 when Hamas Palestinian militants attacked Israel, Al Jazeera has aired continuous on-the-ground reporting on the effects of Israel’s military campaign.

Israel’s military has repeatedly accused journalists from the Qatar-based network of links to Hamas or its ally Islamic Jihad.

Al Jazeera has fiercely denied these accusations and said Israel systematically targets its employees in the Gaza Strip.

Four Al Jazeera journalists have been killed since the war in Gaza began, and the network’s office in the territory has been bombed.

Israel’s military said on Sunday the Ramallah office was closed because it was “used to incite terror” and “support terrorist activities”, and because Al Jazeera’s broadcasts endangered Israel’s security.

“The channel’s offices have been sealed and its equipment has been confiscated,” a military statement said.

Al Jazeera called the Israeli raid “a criminal act” and an attack on press freedom.

In a conversation during the raid broadcast live on the network, an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari there was a court ruling to close down the office for 45 days.

“I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment,” the soldier is seen as saying in the footage.

“Targeting journalists this way always aims to erase the truth and prevent people from hearing the truth,” Omari said.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the Israeli operation as “a flagrant violation” of press freedom.

Shuttering the Al Jazeera office “confirms the (Israeli) occupation’s efforts to disrupt the work of the media in conveying the occupation’s violations against the Palestinian people,” said Mohammed Abu al-Rub, director of the government media office for the Palestinian Authority which has partial administrative control in the West Bank.