A crowd of angry Palestinians attacked the office of Al-Jazeera TV in the city of Ramallah, on Monday afternoon, in protest against recently leaked documents regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, local media agencies informed. A dozen young protesters entered and vandalized Al-Jazeera’s Ramallah office, breaking the security gate of the building and spraying graffiti, before police stepped in to stop the attack.
The city’s municipality urged passers-by not to gather near the TV station’s office. The municipality also issued a statement calling for restraint but also acknowledged ‘the position of the Palestinian street protesters.’
Footage of the incident on YouTube, published by Ma’an News , showed a group of Palestinian youth shouting and chanting slogans at Al-Jazeera’s staff. One urges a photographer to stop filming.
The attack came amidst criticism of the network from PA officials, named in the Al-Jazeera series, ‘The Palestine Papers’, which released, on Sunday, documents indicating PA compromises with Israel on key issues proposed by both Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
PLO chief Yasser Abed Rabbo said on Monday: ‘Al-Jazeera’s information is full of distortions and fraud.’
Al-Jazeera revealed that the 1600 documents included minutes of meetings between Palestinian, Israeli, and American officials, held during 20 years of peace talks. Al-Jazeera and the Guardian anticipated they will release more documents this week.
