JERUSALEM — Israeli troops raided two Palestinian television stations in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank early on Wednesday, confiscating transmitters, computer hard drives and documents and eliciting angry condemnations from the Palestinian Authority.
Officials at the two stations, Al Watan and Al-Quds Educational Television, said that officials from Israel’s Communications Ministry, accompanied by soldiers, spent several hours removing the equipment and documents.
The Israeli ministry said in a statement that it had repeatedly warned both stations that they were using frequencies that violated Israeli-Palestinian agreements and that interfered with communications and transmission systems in Israel. An Israeli military spokesman said the interference was affecting airplane communication at Ben-Gurion International Airport.
The Palestinian Authority replied that it had received no such warnings and that the stations were guilty of no violations.
“We are an educational television station, which puts on ‘Sesame Street,’ antismoking programs and broadcasts to help integrate handicapped children into the community,” said Lucy Nusseibeh, director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al-Quds University, which operates the station. “We have all our licenses through the Palestinian Ministry of Communications and are in constant touch with them. I never heard anything about Israeli complaints or warnings.”
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the Palestinian Authority visited both stations after the raids on Wednesday and vowed to get them replacement transmitters. He condemned the raids and likened them to what went on a decade ago during the second Palestinian uprising.
“This piracy and raids on Palestinian media institutions are reminiscent of practices by the occupation forces in the beginning of the second intifada, when they stormed and vandalized many Palestinian media institutions, including Palestine TV, Palestine Radio as well as Watan TV,” he said.
Ghassan Khatib, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, said the Palestinian Communications Ministry had determined that the stations had complied with legal requirements and the authority’s agreements with Israel.
An Israeli military spokesman, asked why documents and hard drives were confiscated from Watan TV if the concern was about transmission frequencies, said that once the soldiers entered the premises, they noticed suspicious documents and extended what they took with them.
With peace negotiations suspended and the Palestinian Authority exploring reconciliation with the Islamist group Hamas, tensions have risen in the West Bank in recent weeks.
Palestinian demonstrations and incidents of stone throwing have increased, as have Israeli raids and arrests. While Israeli forces generally stay out of Palestinian cities during the day, leaving the Palestinian security forces to keep order, Israeli troops often enter the cities at night to conduct raids.
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