IPI is concerned at the raid by Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) on Palestinian television stations early on Wednesday morning. Inspectors from the Israeli Communications Ministry accompanied by IDF soldiers entered the premises of Watan TV and Quds Educational TV very early on 29 February, removing transmitters and seizing computers and other documents.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the raids, which took place on territory that is solely under Palestinian control according to the Oslo Accords, reports said. The Palestinian telecommunications ministry reportedly plans to send a complaint to the UN’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which allocates “global radio spectrum and satellite orbits”, according to its website.

“They have confiscated all the broadcasting equipment, computers, transmitters which are worth 700,000 dollars; they have also confiscated our financial and administrative files and left nothing for us,” Moammar Orabi, Director General of Watan TV, told IPI in an emailed statement on Thursday.

“We are in a state of emergency and the TV is paralyzed. They claim that our frequency is not legal and interrupts other stations, but that is false. We are licensed internationally and by the Palestinian ministry of telecommunications,” he said. Orabi added that the station had trouble restarting operations after the last raid, in 2002. “We are currently trying to meet media and appeal to our international donors who support our TV like the [European Union] and others, because all the equipment that they donated has been stolen.”

Both stations had returned to the air on Friday, but were operating with “minimal equipment,” and had already received a “warning” via the American consulate in Jerusalem, according to Ramallah-based journalist Mohammed Daraghmeh, who has been covering this story.

A spokesperson for the IDF told the AFP news service that the raid came after “multiple requests” to the stations to stop transmissions, which she said “significantly interrupts other legal broadcasting stations and interferes with aircraft communications.”

But Palestinian Telecommunications Minister Mashour Abu-Daqa told IPI the shut-down was not related to interference with frequencies used at the airport, because the “airport and airplanes are operating at totally different frequencies, far away, and everybody knows this.”

He further said that they had received no warning from Israel, and that Watan TV and Quds TV are properly licensed and have been operational since 1967. “[The stations] apply, we assign, and we tell the Israelis about it,” the minister explained. He said that a joint committee on telecommunications would have been the “proper channel according to our agreement for technical communications.”

Abu-Daqa believes that Israel has “economic” reasons for the shutdown, and is seeking to “evacuate all of the spectrum for their own use.” Specifically, the minister believes that Israel is reserving these frequencies for their own forthcoming 4G mobile phone networks. “UHF [Ultra High Frequencies] are normally the frequencies used for TV, and are part of the spectrum used for terrestrial TV stations. But the technology is evolving, and these frequencies are used now for LTE technology, which is used for 4G mobile operations,” he said.

Israeli Ministry of Communications spokesperson Yechiel Shabi denied the minister’s claims, which he said did not deserve a response. Shabi said Israel has no interest in “harming” the Palestinians and wants them to have their own “economic life.”

According to Shabi, the affected TV stations were interfering with “Israeli frequencies,” though not at the airport. However, Shabi would not go on record to explain whose frequencies had been affected.

“It is not a political issue,” he said, noting that the Ministry also actively works to shut down pirate stations operating from within Israel.  Shabi explained that when the ministry moves to shut down Israeli stations, it works with the police, but that in the Palestinian Territories they are accompanied by the IDF.

Shabi would not comment on whether the ministry had previously warned the Palestinian Authority or the television stations that they were allegedly using illegal frequencies, and also would not comment on whether the television stations had been asked to stop their broadcasts ahead of time.

When asked why computers and documents were removed from the stations, as these do not affect transmission frequencies, Shabi referred IPI to the Israeli Defence Forces. An IDF spokesperson refused to comment on the case, saying that the operation had been authorized by the communications ministry, and it was they who had “committed the seizure.”

“Neither the Israeli communications ministry, nor the IDF, were willing to explain why computers and documents were removed from Watan TV and Quds TV stations,” said IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills. “We call on the Israeli authorities to immediately return all equipment and documents to the affected television stations.”

Mills added: “It is hard to imagine that the only solution to the current standoff is to shut down operations at the stations, which run cultural, news and educational programs including Sesame Stree