After a weekend of near-total internet blackout, connectivity in Gaza has been partially restored.
On Friday, Internet monitoring companies and experts reported that Internet access had significantly degraded in the Palestinian enclave. Local Internet service NetStream “crashed,” according to NetBlocks, a company that tracks Internet access around the world. At the same time, IODA, another Internet tracking system, showed cuts and degradation in several Palestinian Internet providers.
The lack of Internet communication caused emergency lines to stop ringing, made it difficult for paramedics to locate the injured and for relatives to contact family and friends. according to the New York Times.
On Sunday, IODA reported “marginal restoration” of Internet connectivity in Gaza. Abdulmajeed Melhem, chief executive of leading Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel Group, told The Times that the internet had returned even though the company had not made any repairs.
Then, on Monday, Gaza had about the same access to Internet connectivity as before Friday, according to several experts and companies that monitor the Internet in the region, including Doug Madory, an expert who for years has focused on monitoring networks throughout the world.
“There was a 34-hour total blackout from Friday to Sunday, a first in Gaza. Then there was last night’s partial blackout in northern Gaza,” Madory, director of internet analytics at Kentik, told TechCrunch on Monday. “The situation remains very worrying: there is no electricity, there is little water. The service could be interrupted again at any time.”
Sources on the ground appeared to confirm the improvements. Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent humanitarian organization, told TechCrunch that his colleagues in Gaza “can now connect to the internet” after the “total blackout during Friday and Saturday.”
But, Farsakh added, the situation remains difficult.
“We still have difficulties reaching them. I need to call them 10 times to reach one,” Farsakh said.
David Belson, head of data analytics at cloud hosting and security company Cloudflare, told TechCrunch that the company saw connectivity to Gaza restored on Sunday morning local time, and “it has remained available since that time, with a volume of requested traffic equal to or greater than the closure”. levels.”
Cloudflare also shared several graphs showing that internet traffic increased again on Sunday.
It is unclear what caused the internet outages in Gaza on Friday and what caused the improvements on Sunday and Monday. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the US government pressured the Israeli government to reconnect the Internet in Gaza. quoting an anonymous US official.
“We made it clear that they had to be turned back on,” the official said. “Communications have worked again. They have to stay,” the Post quoted the official as saying.
Also on Sunday, The Times reported that the US government believed the Israeli government was responsible for the near-blackout of the Internet in Gaza.
In response to a series of questions from TechCrunch about what happened to networks in Gaza over the weekend and whether the blackout was part of Israeli military operations, an anonymous spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declined to comment. comments.
The internet problems in Gaza came as the IDF expanded ground operations in Gaza, in addition to continued airstrikes. The operations come in response to terrorist attacks by the militant organization Hamas, which left more than 1,400 Israelis dead. As of Sunday, the Associated Press reported that Israeli forces had killed about 8,000 Palestinians, citing the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.
