The Palestinian Telecommunications Agency (PTA), says Internet and phone networks have been completely shut down in Gaza Strip on Wednesday as bombardment from Israel continues.
The agency said it was the second such blackout in the war-ravaged territory in less than a week, with Palestinian telecoms provider, Jawwal, blaming Israel’s “heavy bombardment” of the territory for the blackout.
An online platform reported that the widespread outage of internet and phone service in Gaza came hours after Israeli airstrikes leveled apartment buildings near Gaza City and as ground troops battled Hamas militants inside the besieged territory.
Read also: UN agency loses contact with staff in Gaza
Humanitarian aid agencies have also warned that such blackouts severely disrupt their work in an already dire situation in Gaza, where more than half of the population of 2.3 million Palestinians has been displaced and basic supplies are running low after three weeks of war which was triggered by Hamas’ bloody incursion into southern Israel on October 7.
“To our good people in the beloved country, we are sorry to announce that communications and internet services have been completely cut off in Gaza,” the Palestine Telecommunications Company (Paltel) wrote on X.
Meanwhile, the government of Palestinian militant group Hamas which controls the Strip, has accused Israel of causing the shutdown in order to “perpetrate massacres” in Gaza.
