Israeli authorities raided a Jerusalem hotel room used by Al Jazeera as its office after the government decided to shut down the Qatari-owned TV station’s local operations on Sunday, Reuters reported citing an Israeli official and an Al Jazeera source.

Video circulated online showed plainclothes officers dismantling camera equipment in a hotel room, which the Al Jazeera source said was in East Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet shut down the network for as long as the war in Gaza continues, saying it threatened national security.

Al Jazeera said the move was a “criminal action” and the accusation that the network threatened Israeli security was a “dangerous and ridiculous lie” that put its journalists at risk.

It reserved the right to “pursue every legal step”.

The network has criticised Israel’s military operation in Gaza, from where it has reported throughout the war.

“The incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel,” Netanyahu posted on social media following a unanimous cabinet vote.

A government statement said Israel’s communications minister signed orders to “act immediately”, but at least one lawmaker who supported the closure said Al Jazeera could still try to block it in court.

The measure, the statement said, includes closing Al Jazeera’s offices in Israel, confiscating broadcast equipment, cutting off the channel from cable and satellite companies and blocking its websites. It did not mention Al Jazeera’s Gaza operations.

Israeli satellite and cable television providers suspended Al Jazeera broadcasts following the government decision.

There was no official comment from the Qatari government, which deferred to Al Jazeera.

The network last month complained of “a series of systematic Israeli attacks to silence Al Jazeera”.

It said Israel deliberately targeted and killed several of its journalists, including Samer Abu Daqqa and Hamza AlDahdooh, both killed in Gaza during the conflict. Israel has said it does not target journalists.

Qatar established Al Jazeera in 1996 and views it as a way to bolster its global profile.

“Al Jazeera Media Network strongly condemns and denounces this criminal act that violates human rights and the basic right to access of information,” the network said in a statement. “Al Jazeera affirms its right to continue to provide news and information to its global audiences.”

The UN Human Rights Office also criticised the closure.

“We regret cabinet decision to close Al Jazeera in Israel,” it said on X. “A free & independent media is essential to ensuring transparency & accountability. Now, even more so given tight restrictions on reporting from Gaza. Freedom of expression is a key human right. We urge govt to overturn ban.”

Israel’s parliament last month ratified a law allowing the temporary closure in Israel of foreign broadcasters considered to be a threat to national security.

The law allows Netanyahu and his security cabinet to shut the network’s offices in Israel for 45 days, a period that can be renewed, so it could stay in force until the end of July or until the end of major military operations in Gaza.

Qatar, where several Hamas political leaders are based, is trying to mediate a ceasefire and hostage release deal that could halt the Gaza war.

(Reuters)

Canadian police have arrested three members of an alleged hit squad who are suspected of having been tasked by the Indian government with killing prominent Sikh, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in British Columbia last year.

CBC News reported Sunday that police are also investigating the three suspects for additional murders in Canada, including the shooting of an 11-year-old boy.

The three suspects, Kamalpreet Singh, Karanpreet Singh and Karan Brar, face first-degree murder and conspiracy charges in the Nijjar case.

The three are all Indian nationals.

Sources told CBC News the men arrived on student visas.

None are believed to have pursued education while in Canada. None have obtained permanent residency.

Others tied to this crime could be arrested in the coming days, police said.

“This investigation does not end here. We are aware that others may have played a role in this homicide and we remain dedicated to finding and arresting each one of these individuals,” said Supt. Mandeep Mooker, the officer in charge of the B.C. RCMP’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT).

Assistant Commissioner David Teboul, the RCMP commander for the Pacific region, said he wouldn’t comment on the alleged links between these men and Indian officials, CBC News reported.

He did say the force is “investigating connections to the government of India.”

Nijjar, a 45-year-old Canadian citizen, was shot dead on June 18, shortly after evening prayers at his Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C., in what appeared to be a highly coordinated attack.

Last August, Canadian officials told representatives of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in person that Canada had intelligence linking it to Nijjar’s killing.

A month later — on Sept. 18, 2023 — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in the House of Commons that “Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India” and Nijjar’s killing.

“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” he added.

Modi’s government has denied it ordered extrajudicial killings in the U.S. and Canada.

All of the men arrested Friday are alleged associates of a criminal group in Punjab and neighboring Haryana state that is associated with notorious Punjabi gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, currently held in India’s high-security Sabarmati prison in Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, according to sources close to the investigation.

Bishnoi is accused by the Indian government of the shooting murder of Punjabi singer-politician Sidhu Moose Wala, a former resident of Ontario, Canada, in Punjab in May 2022, as well as drug smuggling and extortion.

CBC News reported that Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a pro-Khalistan activist and the president of a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C. His day job was working as a plumber.

For years, the Indian government called him a terrorist — a claim Nijjar repeatedly denied.

One source close to the investigation told CBC News Canada is seeing foreign governments, including India, make use of criminal elements to carry out international operations.

“Why risk sending Indian government people when you can get so much mileage using people from organized crime?” the investigator said.

Hamas negotiators began intensified talks on Saturday on a possible Gaza truce that would see the return to Israel of some hostages, a Hamas official told Reuters, with the CIA director present in Cairo.

The Hamas delegation arrived from the movement’s political office in Qatar, which, along with Egypt, has tried to mediate a follow-up to a brief November ceasefire amid international dismay over the soaring death toll in Gaza and the plight of its 2.3 million inhabitants, Reuters reported.

Taher Al-Nono, a Hamas official and advisor to Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, said meetings with Egyptian and Qatari mediators had begun and Hamas was addressing their proposals “with full seriousness and responsibility”.

However, he reiterated a demand that any deal should include an Israeli pullout from Gaza and an end to the war, conditions that Israel has previously rejected.

“Any agreement to be reached must include our national demands; the complete and permanent ending of the aggression, the full and complete withdrawal of the occupation from Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced to their homes without restriction and a real prisoner swap deal, in addition to the reconstruction and ending the blockade,” Nono told Reuters.

An Israeli official signaled Israel’s core position was unchanged, saying it would “under no circumstances” agree to end the war in a deal to free hostages.

The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed – 32 of them in the most recent 24-hour period – and more than 77,000 have been wounded in Israel’s assault, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The bombardment has devastated much of the enclave.

While the meetings in Cairo were under way, Israeli forces said they had killed Aiman Zaarab, who they said had been a leader of Islamic Jihad forces in southern Gaza and taken part in the Oct. 7 attack.

Hope grows for truce deal

Before the talks began there had been some optimism.

“Things look better this time but whether an agreement is on hand would depend on whether Israel has offered what it takes for that to happen,” a Palestinian official with knowledge of the mediation efforts, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Washington – which, like other Western powers and Israel, brands Hamas a terrorist group – has urged it to enter a deal.

Progress has stumbled, however, over Hamas’ long-standing demand for a commitment to end the offensive. Israel insists that after any truce it would resume operations designed to disarm and dismantle the faction.

Hamas said on Friday it would come to Cairo in a “positive spirit” after studying the latest proposal, little of which has been made public.

Israel has given a preliminary nod to terms that one source said included the return of between 20 and 33 hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a truce of several weeks.

That would leave around 100 hostages in Gaza, some of whom Israel says have died in captivity. The source, who asked not to be identified by name or nationality, told Reuters their return may require an additional deal.

“That could entail a de facto, if not formal, end to the war – unless Israel somehow recovers them through force or generates enough military pressure to make Hamas relent,” the source said.

Egyptian sources said CIA Director William Burns arrived in Cairo on Friday. He has been involved in previous truce talks and Washington has signaled there may be progress this time.

The CIA declined to comment on Burns’ itinerary.

Cairo made a new push to revive talks late last month, alarmed by the prospect of an Israeli assault against Hamas in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have taken shelter near the border with Egypt.

Such an Israeli operation could derail fragile humanitarian operations in Gaza and endanger many more lives, according to U.N. officials. Israel says it will not be deterred from taking Rafah eventually, and is working on a plan to evacuate civilians.

Saturday’s Cairo talks come as Qatar reviews its role as mediator, according to an official familiar with Doha’s thinking. Qatar may cease hosting the Hamas political office, said the official, who did not know if, in such a scenario, the Palestinian group’s delegates might also be asked to leave.