According to several testimonies, the Israeli bombings against the Gaza Strip on Friday, described as the most intense since the beginning of the war with Hamas, have almost completely cut off communications in the territory, making the Gaza Strip effectively isolated from the rest of the world.
The telephone lines are not working, as is the Internet, and many media and international organizations are unable to contact their correspondents and collaborators in the Strip. At the moment there is therefore very little information on the expansion of military operations announced by Israel on Friday evening.
The first malfunctions were reported around 6pm Italian time. Shortly after the independent observatory NetBlocks he confirmed that real-time data showed “a collapse in connectivity” across the entire territory. Paltel, one of the main Palestinian telephone companies, announced on social networks “the complete interruption of all communication and Internet services with the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing attack”. The services of the operator Jawwal are also interrupted.
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With the Internet and telephone lines down, the Palestinian Red Crescent – the equivalent of the Red Cross for Islamic countries – has lost all contact with its staff in the Strip. The same goes for ActionAid, one of the largest international human rights associations, which said it was “seriously concerned” about the safety of its collaborators and that of all the people in Gaza. «The blackout [delle comunicazioni] it isolates the population and makes it virtually impossible to seek help, share their stories or maintain contact with their loved ones,” in what is already a “catastrophic” humanitarian crisis, the association said.
The World Health Organization has also lost contact with its “staff in Gaza, with health facilities, with health workers and the rest of the humanitarian partners in the area”. In a post on X (Twitter), director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus he urged “immediate protection for all civilians and full access to humanitarian aid” in the Strip.
We have lost touch with our staff in Gaza, with health facilities, health workers and the rest of our humanitarian partners on the ground.
This siege makes me gravely concerned for their safety and the immediate health risks of vulnerable patients.
We urge immediate protection…
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) October 27, 2023
Also Scottish Prime Minister Humza Yousaf he said that he was unable to contact some members of his family who are currently in the Gaza Strip. “We can only pray that they make it to tomorrow morning alive,” Yousaf added.
In these circumstances even the main international media are struggling to communicate with their envoys and correspondents, and in various cases the journalists themselves have explained that they are unable to communicate with any of their contacts in Gaza.
Tom Batemancorrespondent of the BBC in Jerusalem, he says for example that he sent a message on WhatsApp to a person in the Strip when the bombings had just begun, and that the second tick never appeared: a sign that the recipient’s phone never received it. Neither his messages nor his phone calls were successful. He told the same thing Mehdi Musawijournalist from BBC Arabic, who throughout the day had managed to hear his colleagues and some sources who were in the Strip only on WhatsApp, and speak on the phone with a very disturbed signal with the director of the Al Shifa hospital, the one under which according to Israel finds the main base of operations of Hamas. “From the beginning of the evening all lines of communication were cut,” Musawi wrote. “I sent a lot of messages to the people I had spoken to a few hours before, but no one replied.”
The journalist of Al Jazeera Tareq Abu Azzoum he is managing to share some messages and videos from Khan Yunis via satellite, and intervene sporadically live: but the editorial team is unable to contact him directly. In a video that is circulating widely on social networks, Abu Azzoum says that at this moment “more than 2.3 million Palestinians are isolated from the world, unable to communicate with their relatives or with each other”, and adds that he could lose connection “at any time”.
‘The situation is catastrophic right now. We can no longer communicate with the international community. Please guys, if you can hear us send that message to the world, that we are isolated in Gaza.’ pic.twitter.com/yJ61d23qNH
— j (@jrc1921) October 27, 2023