A pair of Israeli government ministers have asked Israel’s government to stop printing online newspaper publications in the country.
The move comes in the wake of a series of violent attacks on print shops and local businesses, including a knife attack that left two Israelis dead on Sunday.
The request came after the Jerusalem Post published a story about the publication of a book about the Palestinian uprising by Palestinian poet Nadeem El-Yousef in Israeli cities.
El-Sohra posted an article online that quoted excerpts from the book and included an image of El-Watan, the man who created it.
El-Waan told The Times of Israel that the book was not about him, and he has been attacked numerous times since the publication, most recently in February.
Elwatan told the newspaper that the ministry of education had issued a decree ordering the closure of all print shops in the occupied West Bank.
The order was accompanied by a directive that prohibited the distribution of the book on Israeli territory.
The decree also made it illegal to distribute it online.
Elwan said the ministry was trying to ban any publication from the occupied territories, including the Jerusalem News, a newspaper published by the local branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel.
The ministry’s directive also stated that any person found distributing the book would be subject to a fine.
“We will continue to fight against the spread of extremist ideas and the destruction of our freedom of speech,” Elwan said.
In response, the ministry said that its actions against publications had nothing to do with the Jerusalem-based newspaper.
The statement said that the Ministry of Education’s directive was “not related to the paper and that the order was issued only because the publication’s contents could not be reproduced in Israeli territory.”
The statement added that the directives came in response to the publication “in violation of the freedom of expression guaranteed to us by the Constitution of Israel.”
Elwaan said he had been instructed to contact the Israeli ministry of culture, which he did on Wednesday.
The ministry’s statement said it was “under the assumption that the newspaper is a violation of Israeli law.”