Al Jazeera controversies and criticism crowed the station's Beirut bureau chief, hailing Kuntar as a "pan-Arab hero." On 13 March 2008, Israel announced a "boycott" of the Arabic broadcaster al-Jazeera, accusing it of bias particularly during coverage of the conflict in the Gaza Strip and of slanted coverage favoring Hamas. Ministers will refuse to do interviews and according to some reports, will deny visa applications from its staff. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Majali Wahbe accused the Qatari-owned station of prioritizing/focusing exclusively on Palestinian suffering, and ignoring Israeli suffering. "We have seen that Al-Jazeera has become part of Hamas ... taking sides and cooperating with people
Al Jazeera War, through Twitter, SMS and the website. Future projects in other languages include Al Jazeera Urdu, an Urdu language channel to cater mainly to Pakistanis. A Kiswahili service called Al Jazeera Kiswahili was to be based in Nairobi and broadcast in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. However, those plans were cancelled due to budget constraints. The channel also has plans to launch a Spanish-language news network to cater mainly to Spain and Hispanic America, like the Iranian cable TV network HispanTV. Al Jazeera has also been reported to be planning to launch an international newspaper. Al Jazeera Arabic began