The world’s largest ‘open-air prison.’ That’s how Gaza is also known, the Palestinian strip of land where bombs, bullets and airstrikes have been a deadly routine for almost a week now.
Hamas (Palestinian militant group which rules the Gaza Strip) attacked first this time, and Israel responded in a major escalation of the decades of tensions between the two nations.
As of October 12, Israel’s military reported more than 1,200 people killed and some 2,800 people wounded. On the other side of the wall at least 1,417 people (including 447 children) were killed and more than 6,200 wounded, the Gaza Ministry of Health reports. Despite issuing an evacuation order for northern Gaza on October 13, Tel Aviv has been blocking all escape routes and has cut basic supplies for the 2.3 million residents since the bombardment began.
No one can leave Gaza and seek shelter. The old analogy has never seemed more accurate.
“The Gaza Strip is being cut off from the world,” said Marwa Fatafta, Mena policy and Advocacy Manager at Access Now, a non-profit digital rights advocacy group. The breakdown of electricity supply and bombed internet infrastructure mean that citizens cannot use their phones to seek help, or communicate with their families and friends in these crucial hours, while journalists are kept from doing their job of sharing news from the ground. The internet shutdown certainly adds fuel to Palestine’s largest human crisis in recent years.
At the same time, this information blackout also paves the way for greater fake news and misleading content to infest international social media feeds. X, formerly known as Twitter, seems to be the main disinformation hub so far, gaining a 24-hour ultimatum from the EU to tackle the issue. Hacker groups from both sides have reportedly launched DDoS attacks on media websites, too.
Gaza’s disconnected internet
“Access Now demands the immediate restoration of internet access for the people of Gaza, who have already long endured horrifying conditions in what is described as the world’s largest open-air prison, and who have little to no means of escape as the violence escalates,” said Fatafta.
Data from the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA) observatory shows a substantial connectivity drop when the first Israeli strikes rained down the Gaza Strip on Sunday, October 8, following the Hamas attacks. As of October 13, IODA data shows internet connectivity in Gaza continuing to drop with the signal falling to just 20%.
Also Cloudflare reported a huge impact on internet traffic, both in Israel and Palestine, since the conflict began. UK-based internet watchdog NetBlocks confirmed a decline in connectivity in the Tel Aviv district as Hamas missiles hit Rutenberg power station in Ashkelon on October 7. Experts also reported major internet disruptions in Gaza as the conflict escalated into the following days.
Among the many destroyed buildings in Gaza, there are those containing offices and infrastructure for the two main telecommunication providers (Paltel and Jawwal) and media offices in Watan Tower. Meanwhile, damages to ISP and phone infrastructure also caused widespread outages for both fixed-line internet, mobile data and phone lines.
To this already precarious situation, there has been further damage to Gaza’s electrical grid and Israeli orders to stop supplying electricity to the Gaza Strip. Smartphones are running low on battery and residents don’t know how long they will be able to communicate with those on the other side of the wall.
Sources from Gaza |Israeli forces bombed Jawwal building, no cell phone and internet coverage in many parts of Gaza….People can’t call and reassure their relatives. Phones don’t work. pic.twitter.com/TrEvcTyEqwOctober 9, 2023
An internet shutdown always strips people of their rights, especially during a conflict, impacting everyone inside a country in many different ways. Sometimes security software like VPN services and Tor can help navigate disruptions. However, these tools are completely useless against a total lack of connection and electrical power. Now, for people in Gaza, the consequences of such a blackout have never been higher.
On this point, Fatafta said: “The total blockade now in place will only exacerbate the situation and may result in more atrocities for those plunged under the darkness of a communications blackout.”
Israel-Hamas war on fake news
A communication blackout means that accounts coming from the ground are having difficulty reaching the outside world—but all the eyes are on Gaza at the moment. This high demand for exclusive dispatches and scarce verification is the perfect base for disinformation to spread—from both sides of the digital battlefield.
Countless images and hours of video footage have been inundating social media platforms since the conflict began. There’s an issue, though: many of these include footage from other wars or even video games, paired with speculations aiming to mislead viewers.
This, according to Dina Sadek, a Middle East research fellow at the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab, “makes it difficult for users to discern what is real and what is not,” Al Jazeera reported.
Thread: Online misinformation about the Israel-Hamas conflict – Day 7This video, viewed 450,000 times, claims to show Israel bomb Palestinian homes in Gaza.The video is from the Syrian war, and shows government forces bombing a residential area in Yabroud in 2013. pic.twitter.com/iKTQM2tlYQOctober 12, 2023
While X (Twitter) is indicated as where most disinformation circulates and, according to some commentators, Elon Musk has cut of staff and vital features, Sadek claims that misleading content around the attacks are travelling from platform to platform as well.
According to Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Israel-Hamas war on fake news is a clear byproduct of today’s digital landscape. He said to Al Jazeera: “The flood of grifters spreading lies and hate about the Israel-Gaza crisis in recent days, combined with algorithms that aggressively promote extreme and disturbing content, is exactly why social media has become such a bad place to access reliable information.”
In a major blow to verified news, media companies and newspapers websites in both Palestine and Israel have increasingly been the target of DDoS attacks as well. The Jerusalem Post’s site was reportedly down until Tuesday, with the group Anonymous Sudan claiming responsibility in its Telegram group—Axios reported.
Palestinian emergency services have also reportedly suffered cyberattacks, as have a series of Israeli organizations including Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ben Gurion Airport. For the latter, website connectivity seemed to have been restored as of the end of Monday October 9.
Experts at the security research group CyberKnow counted 58 groups so far actively targeting both Palestine and Israel infrastructure with DDoS attacks. They expect further DDoS campaigns, data breach, doxxing and misleading content to continue as the conflict persists.
What’s at stake for people in Gaza?
The news coming from Gaza itself might be scarce, some even manipulated. However, what information that does manage get out is terrifying. The loss of connectivity instantly became just a small tile of a mosaic of death and destruction.
Writing for the Guardian from Gaza, Mahmoud Shalabi, Gaza Director for Medical Aid for Palestinians, described a situation that “has never been seen before.”
He wrote: “We in the health sector are realizing the true horror of what is happening here—that no one is safe. Not families in their homes, and not first responders in ambulances. My eldest son, who is nine years old, asked me whether if he died he would go to heaven or hell. This broke my heart in half.
“People fear the worst is yet to come, given the support Israel is receiving from its Western allies, without consideration or concern for basic humanitarian principles or international law. We only hope that we will come out of this alive.”
