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30-10-2023
NEW YORK/ JERUSALEM: Internet monitoring service NetBlocks posted network data on X, formerly known as twitter showing that internet connectivity was being restored on Sunday.
Phone lines and internet connections are slowly returning to Gaza after more than a day of almost total communications blackout.
Connectivity was cut as Israel intensified its bombardment of the territory, and began a large ground operation involving tanks and troops.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says this marks the “second stage” of what he says will be a “long and difficult” war with Hamas.
He has confirmed Israeli commanders are deployed “all over the Gaza Strip”
The International Red Cross (ICRC) has called for an immediate halt to what it’s described as the “intolerable level of human suffering” in the territory.
Israel has been bombing Gaza since the 7 October Hamas attacks that killed 1,400 people and saw 229 people kidnapped as hostages.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 8,000 people have been killed since Israel’s retaliatory bombing began.
Real-time network data shows that internet connectivity is being restored in the Gaza Strip, Internet monitoring group NetBlocks said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Some journalists in Gaza also tweeted that they were able to make phone calls and access social media.
Communication networks in Gaza went down on Friday evening, leaving it almost entirely cut off from the outside world as Israel announced it had begun the second stage of a “long and difficult war with Hamas”.
On Saturday, senior advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu Mark Regev told media that it was “standard behavior” to disrupt the communications of the enemy.
Asked directly by a media outlet if Israel had deliberately cut the communications to Gaza, Regev replied: “I didn’t say that. I just said that it is normal practice for Western, democratic armies to do”.
As we’ve been reporting, connectivity is returning to Gaza today and we are slowly starting to hear back from people on the ground.
WhatsApp messages that we sent on Friday night are finally showing two ticks, indicating that they have been received.
One contact left a short message this morning letting us know that he is “OK”.
Another, whose family had stayed in central Gaza for fear of being caught in a strike on the road if they travelled south, attempted to call after finally receiving our messages but the connection was too weak to speak. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
