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29-10-2023
JERUSALEM: The near-total telecommunications blackout in Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the Palestinian territory risks providing cover for mass atrocities, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Friday.
Internet access and the phone network were completely cut across the Gaza Strip on Friday, nearly three weeks after Israel began bombarding the enclave following an armed attack by Hamas militants that Israeli officials say killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip says at least 7,326 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory strikes since the October 7 attack, mainly civilians and many of them children.
“Widespread phone and Internet outages occurred in Gaza on October 27, 2023, amid a concerted Israeli bombardment, almost entirely cutting off the 2.2 million residents from the outside world,” HRW said in a statement.
“This information blackout risks providing cover for mass atrocities and contributing to impunity for human rights violations,” Deborah Brown, the group’s senior technology and human rights researcher, said in the statement.
A number of international agencies and NGOs said they had lost touch with their staff in Gaza on Friday, including the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA.
Its humanitarian coordinator Lynn Hastings said in a statement that UN hospitals and humanitarian operations “can’t continue without communications,” alongside energy, food, water and medications.
The NGO Amnesty International said it had also lost contact with colleagues in Gaza.
“This communications blackout means that it will be even more difficult to obtain critical information and evidence about human rights violations and war crimes being committed against Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” it added.
However, 870 children are missing in Gaza and feared trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings, as relentless bombardments, decimated infrastructure including roads, and lack of fuel due to the ongoing siege prevent rescue workers from reaching them.
Since violence escalated in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory on 7 October, at least 2,360 children have been killed in Gaza and 5,364 injured. According to Israeli media, 28 children were killed in Israel and at least 220 people are currently held captive in Gaza, including children.
A doctor at Al Awda Hospital in northern Gaza told Save the Children that concerns over missing people and the increasing number of separated children are growing, adding that he received at least 10-12 cases of separated children in his hospital and several other cases of deceased children whose bodies hadn’t been identified or claimed by any relatives. (Int’l News Desk)
