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The network in most of Gaza is “still down,” director of Palestinian telecommunication provider Ooredoo, Samer Fares, told CNN on Friday.
In southern and central Gaza, there is a communications blackout because the underground fiber-optic line connecting internet and cellphone towers in Gaza to Israel and the West Bank has been severed by Israeli military activity, Fares said. This infrastructure is operated by Gaza’s main telecommunications provider Palestinian Telecommunications Company (Paltel).
Paltel have been trying to fix the cut in the line, but have not yet been able to, Fares said. “We were told by Paltel that communications would be restored on Thursday, but they have not come back yet,” he added.
Ooredoo has partial services in northern Gaza because it has a backup microwave link with Cellecom, an Israeli telecom provider, Fares said.
Paltel have been unable to access the southern areas of Gaza “due to the lack of secure routes and the difficulty of movement due to the massive destruction of roads, and due to a shortage of spare parts,” the Palestinian state news agency (WAFA) said, citing Ihab Sbeih, an official at the Palestinian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology
The communications blackout has now entered its eighth day, WAFA said, adding that it is “the longest outage” since October 7. CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces to inquire about the restoration of network in Gaza.
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