17 January 2024
A telecommunications blackout in the besieged Gaza Strip has entered its sixth day, the longest continuous outage since the Israel-Hamas war began, an AFP report said Wednesday, citing internet monitor NetBlocks.
Gaza’s internet services have been constantly disrupted throughout the war, now in its fourth month.
“The disruption, now entering its sixth day, is the longest sustained telecoms outage on record since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war,” NetBlocks said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Palestinian telecoms provider Jawwal blamed Israel’s “heavy bombardment” of the territory for a previous blackout.
The AFP report maintains that humanitarian leaders have said communications blackouts impeded deliveries of aid.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said in November that aid trucks were unable to enter Gaza from Egypt for two straight days due to the near-total communications blackout.
At least 24,448 Palestinians, about 70 percent of them women, young children and adolescents, have been killed in Israeli bombardments and ground assaults, according to the Gaza health ministry’s latest figures.
