Smoke rises from a series of destroyed buildings in Gaza on October 29 (Photo: NYT).
On October 27, three weeks into Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza and as Palestinians braced for an imminent ground offensive, basic services such as electricity, telephones and the internet were suddenly cut off. Two US officials said Washington held Tel Aviv responsible for the outage.
"I feel blind and deaf, unable to see or hear anything," Gaza-based journalist Fathi Sabbah wrote on Facebook on October 29.
Since Hamas gunmen launched a surprise attack on October 7, prompting Tel Aviv to launch a fierce counterattack, Gaza residents say they have been living a nightmare.
In it, the Israeli army declared a siege on densely populated areas, cutting off electricity, water and medical supplies while unleashing a series of relentless aerial bombardments and artillery fire.
On October 29, the Israeli military said it had expanded a ground offensive overnight and warned with increasing “urgency” that Palestinian civilians should move to southern Gaza, despite the continued air strikes there. Tel Aviv also said it was carrying out air strikes in Lebanon after at least 16 rockets were fired from there into Israeli territory.
Medical aid is delivered to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on October 29 (Photo: NYT).
In Gaza, 47 aid trucks crossed the border from Egypt carrying water, food and medicine. It was the most aid in a single day since trucks were first allowed into Gaza on October 21, but still far short of the level of support that aid agencies have called for.
Ahmed Yousef, a 45-year-old civil servant living in the town of Deir El Balah, said he thought the loss of electricity and water was the worst thing that could happen. “But the loss of communications was much worse,” he said. He initially thought it was a temporary problem, and later learned that Gaza was almost completely without electricity. He was forced to use a solar-powered system to watch the Al Jazeera satellite television network, his only link to the outside world.
Abdulmajeed Melhem, CEO of Paltel Group, Palestine's leading telecommunications company, said the connection was suddenly partially restored at around 4 a.m. on October 29. He added that the company had not made repairs and did not understand how or why the service was partially restored.
He said the Israeli government was responsible for cutting off and restoring the services. Israeli officials have so far declined to comment on allegations that they deliberately cut off essential services to carry out the attack. Two U.S. officials said they had urged their Israeli counterparts to do what they could to restore communications.
Horror and anger across Gaza
Bodies wrapped in white sheets lie on the streets of Gaza waiting to be buried (Photo: NYT).
Power and communications outages have caused terror and anger across the Gaza Strip.
Isolated from the outside world - and from each other - Gaza's people face scenes straight out of an apocalyptic movie.
Mahmoud Basl, a civil defense official, said rescue teams were forced to try to locate airstrike sites by observing the direction of the blast. In other cases, volunteers picked up the wounded and took them to hospitals, notifying teams when they arrived at the site of an airstrike so they could try to rescue others left behind, he added.
Yusuf Al-Loh, the executive director of a medical services agency under the Ministry of Interior, described people running more than 2km to reach rescue teams and calling for help. When some finally arrived, he said, they were so angry at feeling abandoned that they insulted rescuers, causing worrying psychological pressure.
"It is a worrying sign that civil order is beginning to break down after three weeks of fighting and a tight siege in Gaza," said Thomas White, the director of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip. "The tension and fear are getting worse because of the cut off of telephone and internet lines. They feel alone, cut off from their families in Gaza and the rest of the world," he added.
Helmi Mousa was one of the few residents with an internet connection on the morning of October 28 amid widespread power outages. However, that did not ease his worries as he was still unable to contact relatives living just a few kilometers away.
Mr Mousa, 70, a retired writer, and his wife Basma Attia were sharing a ninth-floor apartment in a building in Gaza City. “The explosions were coming to our left, to our right – from every direction,” he said. “It felt like there were 100 planes attacking Gaza – and it felt like there was no limit to the madness or the imagination.”
Yousef, a civil servant, sits at home with his two daughters, listening to the sounds of the airstrikes. So far they are safe, though he says he feels as if something has been broken in this, one of the most horrific, wars.
“If I survive this war, my family and I will leave Gaza forever. This cannot be our life,” he said.
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