Hamas Shuts Down Three Media Outlets in Gaza

News Sources: Hamas shut down three news agencies in Gaza and has recently criticized two of them agencies for their coverage of politics in Egypt. Image by Getty Images
Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas closed the offices of three media companies, including the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television and Palestinian news agency Maan, on Thursday, employees and a Hamas spokesman said.
Al Arabiya and Maan employees said Hamas security men had arrived at their offices with an order from the attorney general to shut down immediately and a Hamas spokesman said the step was temporary, until an investigation was concluded.
“The attorney general received complaints, including from the Ministry of Information, that Al Arabiya and Maan reported false news, fabrications and lies,” said Hamas government spokesman Ehab al-Ghsain.
Ghsain did not single out any news reports, but Hamas officials have in the past few days criticized coverage by Al Arabiya and Maan of the Islamist group’s tense relations with Egypt’s new rulers as “damaging” to the Palestinian people.
The ousting by the Egyptian army of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi by the army has dealt a blow to Hamas, which is an offshoot of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
The Egyptian military has cracked down on tunnels used to smuggle goods and arms into Gaza from Egypt since Mursi’s fall, choking the flow of goods into the Israeli-blockaded enclave.
Hamas has rejected suggestions that Gaza militants might be helping their counterparts in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, where Egyptian security sources say radical groups have been launching almost daily attacks on Egyptian forces.
Apart from Al Arabiya and Maan, Ghsain said the office of a Gaza-based production company called Lens was shut for “collaboration with Zionist media”. An employee of Lens said it had been contracted to report for a new news channel based in Israel.
Maan is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank where U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a rival of Hamas, heads the Palestinian Authority, which has limited self-rule in the territory.
The Palestinian Authority’s Information Ministry condemned Hamas’s measures as “a blow to the freedom of expression”.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture In a time of tariffs and uncertainty, this is the Jewish word we need to soothe our minds and souls
-
Opinion As Zionist Jews, we must condemn Trump’s campaign to deport students
-
Opinion Trump is cracking down on universities — just like Hitler targeted academics who didn’t bow to his will
-
Fast Forward As Netanyahu arrives in Budapest, Hungary announces exit from International Criminal Court
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.