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 Airport.
The Palestinian Authority replied that it had received no such warnings and that the stations were guilty of no violations.