Amid outcry, communications minister backtracks, orders seized equipment returned to AP

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi backtracks on his order to confiscate equipment from The Associated Press news agency that was broadcasting a live feed of northern Gaza, and says the cameras will be returned.

The ministry said the equipment was taken because AP had ignored warnings to stop supplying the feed to the banned Al Jazeera network.  The ministry later said the feed of northern Gaza exposed troop movements.

“The Communications Ministry acted today to confiscate equipment that, despite repeated warnings, transmitted to Al Jazeera about the positions of our forces in the northern Gaza Strip while putting them at risk —  in accordance with security opinions and the government’s decision,” Karhi says in a late night statement.

“Since the Ministry of Defense wishes to examine the matter of the broadcasts from these locations in Sderot regarding the risk to our forces, I have now ordered a cancellation of the operation and return the equipment to AP, until a different decision is made by the Ministry of Defense,” Karhi says.

The decision to confiscate the equipment sparked an outcry, including from the White House, which said it was engaging directly with Israel to ask that its actions be reversed.