Telecommunication and internet services have been cut off in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian telecoms company Paltel has said, as Israel intensifies its assault on the besieged territory, Al Jazeera reported.
“We regret to announce the complete cessation of the communications and Internet services with the Gaza strip, as the main paths that were previously reconnected were disconnected again,” Paltel said in a statement on Monday.
Cybersecurity watchdog NetBlocks confirmed that the “near-total internet blackout” would be “experienced as a total loss of communications by most residents.”
“Confirmed: Live metrics show that the #Gaza Strip is now in the midst of a near-total internet blackout; the incident impacts the telecoms backbone via Israel, mirroring previous recorded outages, and will be experienced as a total loss of communications by most residents.”
Israel’s military on Monday called for more evacuations in southern Gaza as it widened its offensive.
Israel ordered Palestinians to leave parts of southern Gaza’s main city, Khan Younis, but residents said that areas which they had been told to go to were also coming under fire.
Israeli troops and tanks also pressed the ground campaign in the south of the enclave after having largely gained control of the now-devastated north. “We are beginning to expand the ground manoeuvre to other parts of the Strip, with one goal – to topple the Hamas terrorist group,” Brigadier-General Hisham Ibrahim told Army Radio.
