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Internet Blackouts in Gaza Are a New Weapon in the Israel-Hamas War [1]

['Condé Nast', 'Matt Burgess', 'Lily Hay Newman', 'Angela Watercutter', 'Andy Greenberg', 'Medea Giordano', 'Darren Loucaides', 'David Gilbert', 'Andrew Couts', 'Justin Ling']

Date: 2023-11-07 18:41:31.312000+00:00

Since Hamas’ tragic October attack on Israel that killed at least 1,400 people, the country’s retaliation in Gaza has led to more than 10,000 deaths, according to unverified claims from the Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry, and broad destruction of the community's basic utilities and infrastructure. This includes its internet and communication systems, with dwindling connectivity largely cutting off 2.2 million Gazans from the outside world.

On October 27, Israel reportedly imposed a full internet shutdown in the area, cutting off the last remaining connectivity for about 34 hours as its troops moved into the Gaza Strip. After what’s left of Gaza’s internet access was restored—data shows it stands at around 15 percent or less of usual connectivity—the area has suffered two other, similar connectivity blackouts. The most recent lasted for about 15 hours on Sunday as Israel was carrying out an intense operation to cut off Gaza City in the north from southern Gaza

While researchers and technologists who monitor internet connectivity can’t conclusively say that Israel was behind the blackouts—or that they were imposed using technical controls rather than physical destruction of infrastructure—the fact that some connectivity could be restored so rapidly seems to indicate deliberate shutdowns over incidental destruction.

“In the last 10 days, there have been three periods of time that connectivity has gone to completely zero,” says Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at monitoring firm Kentik. He notes that from the data he is able to see, it's only possible to determine whether internet service providers in Gaza are communicating with the outside world and not the specific cause of an outage. One “aggressor in the conflict that's taking place in Gaza happens to have the ability to turn off service in the region that they're doing military operations in,” Madory says.

Throughout the Gaza Strip, there are around a dozen internet service providers and cell phone companies that get people online—although cell networks only use 2G technologies, as opposed to the faster 3G, 4G, and 5G connections available across much of Israel. These companies are heavily reliant on Israeli infrastructure to connect to the global internet, with open internet advocacy nonprofit the Internet Society classing Palestine as having “poor” connections to the wider internet. Since the start of the war, mobile and internet providers’ offices, cables, and cell towers have been destroyed. Many are now totally offline.

“Israel controls the telecommunication and internet that comes to Gaza,” says Husam Mekdad, a telecoms engineer living in southern Gaza in a message to WIRED. He says “most” of the main internet service providers are down, and the mobile operators that can still operate 2G connections have hugely congested networks.

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[1] Url: https://www.wired.com/story/israel-gaza-internet-blackouts-weapon/

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