Telecommunications services have been cut in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel said, as Israel intensifies its attack on the besieged territory.
“We regret to announce the complete cessation of communications and internet services with the Gaza Strip, as key access routes that were previously reconnected have been cut off again,” Paltel said in a statement Monday.
Cybersecurity watchdog NetBlocks confirmed that the “near total internet outage” would be “experienced as a complete loss of communications by most residents”.
⚠️ Confirmed: Live measurements show that the #Gaza Strip is now in the midst of a near-total internet blackout; the incident impacts the telecommunications backbone network through Israel, mirroring previously recorded outages, and will be experienced as a total loss of communications by most residents 📉 pic.twitter.com/EujmEvVb3j
– NetBlocks (@netblocks) December 4, 2023
The announcement comes amid intense airstrikes on Gaza as Israel expands its attack on the besieged territory that began on October 7 after Hamas fighters from Gaza carried out an attack on southern Israel, killing 1 200 people, according to Israeli officials.
At least 15,899 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive, according to Palestinian authorities, and more than 75 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said at least 50 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit two schools housing displaced people in the northern Gaza neighborhood of Daraj.
WAFA reported that ambulances had difficulty reaching the sites of the strikes to evacuate victims due to the intensity of the artillery bombardment.
Tel Aviv Tribune was unable to independently verify this information.
The Israeli military called for more evacuations in southern Gaza on Monday as it widened its offensive.
Israel ordered Palestinians to leave parts of the main southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, but residents said the areas they were asked to go were also under fire.
Israeli troops and tanks also continued the ground campaign in the south of the enclave after largely taking control of the now devastated north. “We are starting to expand our ground maneuvers to other parts of the Gaza Strip, with one goal: to overthrow the Hamas terrorist group,” Brigadier General Hisham Ibrahim told Army Radio.
The Israeli military published a map on social media platform The arrows pointed south and west, toward the Mediterranean coast and toward Rafah, an important city near the Egyptian border.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, said the area around the facility was subject to “incessant and non-stop bombing and artillery bombardment.”
“We have never heard of such bombings near the hospital before,” he said.
“The southern Gaza Strip has also suffered incessant airstrikes. The fact is that there is no safe place inside the Gaza Strip,” Abu Azzoum stressed.
The director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Thomas White, said there was no safe place for people seeking to flee the bombing.
“People are asking for advice on where to find safety. We have nothing to say to them,” he said on X.
Bombing at a site in Rafah overnight left a crater the size of a basketball court in the ground, Reuters reported.
The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has called on it to do more to protect civilians in the southern part of Gaza than during last month’s campaign in the north. Washington said on Monday it was asking Israel to let more fuel into the Gaza Strip.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Israel to “avoid further actions that would worsen the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza and to spare civilians further suffering,” the UN spokesperson said, Stéphane Dujarric.
“The Secretary-General reiterates the need for an unhindered and sustained flow of humanitarian assistance to meet the needs of the population throughout the Gaza Strip,” Dujarric said. “For those ordered to evacuate, there is nowhere safe to go and very little to survive. »