Human Rights Watch warns communications blackout in Gaza serves as a cover for mass atrocities

Human Rights Watch warned on Saturday, through its official website, that the disruption of communications and the Internet in the Gaza Strip, which is under violent and intensive bombardment, could hide mass atrocities.

Human Rights Watch official Deborah Brown said in a statement that the blackout of information could serve as a “cover for mass atrocities and contribute to impunity for human rights violations.”

For its part, Amnesty International said that it had lost contact with its employees in Gaza.

The non-governmental organization expressed its regret that “this communication breakdown means that it will become more difficult to obtain necessary information and evidence related to human rights violations and war crimes committed against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and to hear directly from those who are subjected to these violations.”

In turn, the NetBlocks service, which monitors Internet connectivity, spoke of “the collapse of communication in the Gaza Strip.”

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), several UN agencies have lost contact with their teams in Gaza.

OCHA Humanitarian Coordinator Lynn Hastings said in a statement that humanitarian operations and hospital activities “cannot continue without communications.”

For his part, Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X: “The organization is still unable to communicate with its employees, nor with the health facilities in Gaza… The power outage in Gaza makes it impossible for ambulances to reach the wounded, and it also Patients in such conditions cannot be evacuated or find safe shelter.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent also announced on its website that this “affects the central emergency number 101 and impedes the arrival of ambulances to the injured” in the light of the continuing Israeli raids, noting the inability of doctors to continue providing care under these circumstances.

Amnesty International also affirmed that the Palestinians in Gaza Strip are being exposed to an unprecedented danger that makes it difficult to document violations of the Israeli occupation due to cutting off all means of communication by the occupation, amid intensified of air, land and sea bombardment on the people in the Strip.

“Israel must immediately stop its indiscriminate attacks that have caused the killing and injury of thousands of civilians, including more than 3,000 children,” Amnesty International said, demanding that the Internet and communications infrastructure be urgently restored, so that rescue teams can at least provide treatment and transport the injured whose number is increasing due to intense bombing on Gaza.

Hamda Mustafa