The Palestinian Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy announced that telecommunications companies have resumed operating their sites in the northern and southern Gaza Strip.
This came in a statement issued yesterday by Communications Minister Abdel Razzaq Natsheh, the day after the Gaza ceasefire agreement entered into force.
Al-Natsheh said, “Telecommunications companies began restarting their sites in the Rafah (south) and northern Gaza governorates, immediately after the ceasefire agreement entered into force (Sunday).”
He added that this step comes as part of efforts to restore basic services in the areas affected by the war on Gaza.
Intense work
The Palestinian Minister explained that technical crews are working intensively to repair the damage and ensure the restoration of communications and Internet services as quickly as possible.
He said, “Obstructing the access of technical teams to the northern governorates due to field conditions or procedures on the ground may negatively affect the continuity of Internet services,” and called on all concerned parties to facilitate the arrival of crews to ensure that repairs are implemented with the utmost speed and efficiency.
Over the course of more than 15 months of Israeli genocide in Gaza, the Ministry reported in successive statements the interruption of communications services in the Strip, as a result of fuel exhaustion and Israeli targeting. Once services gradually returned, they stopped again due to the same reason in addition to Israeli targeting.
Isolating the Palestinians
Israel has repeatedly cut off the communications network and the Internet in areas of the Gaza Strip, isolating them from the outside world, in a move that Palestinian factions considered “a crime aimed at isolating and displacing the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
On Sunday morning, the ceasefire agreement in Gaza entered into force, and the first phase is scheduled to last 42 days, during which negotiations will take place to begin a second and then a third phase, mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States.
Between October 7, 2023 and January 19, the Israeli genocide in Gaza resulted in more than 157,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing persons, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
