JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Government Press Office said it will defer the revocation of the press card of a senior reporter for the Al Jazeera network based in Jerusalem.

The move to revoke the press card of reporter Elias Karram, accused of aiding the Palestinian “resistance” to the State of Israel, was seen as the first step towards shuttering Al Jazeera’s offices in Israel, which has been threatened by both Communications Minister Ayoub Kara of the Likud Party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The announcement Wednesday of the decision to defer the suspension of Karram’s press card for six months, during which time his press reports will be “monitored,” comes after a hearing on Aug. 21, at which Karram said “I had no intention of supporting or expressing sympathy for armed resistance,” the GPO said in a statement.

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Karram, an Israeli citizen from Nazareth, has carried a GPO card on behalf of Al Jazeera since 2011.

Earlier this month the GPO had threatened to revoke Karram’s press card citing a May 2016 interview with the Turkey-based television network Dar al-Iman in which Karram reportedly referred to his “media work [as] an integral part of the resistance and its educational political activity.” The press office says the network is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood movement.

Palestinians often use the term resistance to describe a range of actions in opposition to Israel or its control of the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, including violent and nonviolent activities.

Karram said during the hearing that he does not mix opinion with reporting and does not see his role as a journalist in taking any position either for or against any particular kind of resistance. He said that when he used the term resistance in the interview it meant “only media exposure to the reality of the Palestinian people living under occupation. I did not adopt, call for or incite to resistance of any kind.”