Israel Shuts Down Palestinian Radio Station For ‘Incitement To Violence’

TEL AVIV – IDF troops and the Shin Bet security agency shut down a Palestinian radio station and arrested five employees Wednesday morning for “broadcasting inciting programs,” the army said.

The al-Sanabel radio station, located in the West Bank town of Dura near Hebron, encouraged attacks against Israelis, praised terrorists, and broadcast calls for Palestinians to join the Intifada against Israel.

IDF soldiers, police officers, Shin Bet security service agents, and members of the Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration conducted a joint raid of the radio station, seizing “technical equipment and transmitters,” the army said.

In separate raids, IDF soldiers arrested eight Palestinians – two of whom are suspected members of Hamas – in the West Bank Tuesday night for “violent riots against citizens and security forces,” the army said.

In March, the IDF shut down another West Bank broadcaster, TV channel Palestine Today, for “calling for the carrying out of terrorist attacks against the State of Israel and its citizens,” the Shin Bet said at the time.

“The station was apparently used by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization as a central instrument in inciting the population of the West Bank, as it called for terror attacks to be carried out against the State of Israel and its residents,” the Shin Bet said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed incitement for the almost yearlong terror wave against Israelis.

In January, 15-year-old Morad Bader Abdullah Adais, the terrorist who stabbed Israeli mother of six Dafna Meir to death in front of her children, told Shin Bet interrogators he was influenced by “Palestinian television broadcasts which portrayed Israel as ‘killing young Palestinians.’”

In February, Breitbart Jerusalem reported that, in random street interviews, Palestinians admitted that their media – especially television – was to blame for inciting children to carry out acts of  terror.