The Israeli government has severed all ties with the left-wing newspaper Haaretz, after the paper's publisher made earlier comments describing Hamas fighters as "freedom fighters."

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi’s office announced that the government unanimously approved his proposal to end the relationship, including advertising for government tenders, both in print and on the newspaper’s website. An official statement said that the government “will cut off all advertising ties with Haaretz and calls on all its branches, ministries and bodies, as well as any government institution or body funded by it, not to communicate with Haaretz in any way and not to publish any publications in it.” The statement continued, “While the government supports freedom of the press and freedom of expression, it will not accept a situation in which the publisher of an official newspaper calls for sanctions against it and supports its enemies in the midst of war.” Karhi’s office noted that the decision to boycott the newspaper came in the wake of numerous articles “that have harmed the legitimacy of the State of Israel in the world and its right to self-defense, especially the comments of the newspaper’s publisher Amos Schocken at a conference in London last month (…) We must not allow a reality in which the publisher of an official newspaper in the State of Israel calls for sanctions against it and supports the enemies of the state in the midst of war.” And Israel is financing it.

“Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is leading a brutal apartheid regime against the Palestinian population, ignoring the costs to both sides of defending the settlements [in the West Bank] while fighting Palestinian freedom fighters whom Israel describes as terrorists,” said Schocken. “What is happening in Gaza is a second Nakba,” he said, calling for sanctions on Israel, which he said “is the only way to establish a Palestinian state.”

Although Haaretz later tried to contradict Schocken, asserting in an editorial following his statements that “any organization that calls for the killing of women, children and the elderly is a terrorist organization, and its members are terrorists. They are certainly not freedom fighters.” But the official Israeli attack on the newspaper did not stop, to the point that Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin asked Israeli Attorney General Gali Beharev-Miara to send a new bill that would make encouraging international sanctions on Israel a criminal offense, punishable by 10 years in prison. Even before the official decision was issued, the Director General of the Ministry of Transportation, Moshe Ben Zakan, instructed his ministry’s spokespeople and media department to immediately cease all dealings with the Haaretz group, and other bodies followed suit.

It is noteworthy that the attack on Haaretz came on the grounds that relations with the government are not good due to the newspaper’s coverage of the war on the Gaza Strip. Haaretz is known for being hostile to the current government’s policy and against wars in general. In 2021, during an Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, the newspaper published on its front page pictures of 67 Palestinian children killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, saying that this was the price of war, before facing a storm from the government and the right that reached the point of accusing it of treason. Haaretz attacked the Israeli government’s approach against it, saying that it was “another step in Netanyahu’s efforts to dismantle Israeli democracy.”

Haaretz added that it "will not back down, and will not turn into a government booklet publishing messages approved by the government and its prime minister."

The decision against Haaretz has encouraged ministers to demand similar decisions against other media outlets. The Israeli website i24NEWS said that quotes from the discussion in which the decision to boycott Haaretz was taken indicate that ministers wanted to cut ties with other media outlets. The website confirmed that Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said at the meeting: “We need to stop contacts not only with Haaretz, but also with News 12 and N12, after the slander in the Sde Teiman affair (the prison where Israel has held thousands of Gazans in inhumane conditions). The publication caused international damage.”

But Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich refused, replying: “You are causing harm, and you are explaining why the attorney general was right when she spoke of a slippery slope.” Education Minister Yoav Kisch then joined Smotrich, telling Eliyahu: “This is not good for us, it is harming our line,” before Eliyahu responded: “There is a slippery slope, so government advertisements should only be banned when there is malicious damage to state security during a war, as News 12 did.”