Skyline Condemns Israel for Plunging Gaza into Internet Blackout and Isolation

Read in Arabic / للقراءة بالعربية

Skyline International for Human Rights condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli authorities’ deliberate severing of internet and communications across Gaza. We demand Israel immediately restore full services, cease all targeting of telecommunications infrastructure, and uphold its obligations under international law.

On September 17, 2025, the Palestinian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced a total shutdown of internet and landline services in Gaza City and North Gaza, following the targeting of main network routes during Israel’s intensified military attacks. This is the latest in a series of deliberate and prolonged communications blackouts in Gaza, imposed at moments of escalated violence, mass displacement, and mounting civilian deaths.

The shutdown comes as Israeli forces expand their ground invasion in Gaza City, ordering mass evacuations and forcing over 400,000 Palestinians to flee southward in recent days. At the same time, Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 108 people in Gaza since yesterday morning alone. These figures add to an already staggering death toll amid a campaign that has reduced much of the Strip to rubble. 

Cutting off connectivity at this critical moment severs a lifeline for over two million civilians in Gaza. Families cannot call ambulances, medical teams cannot coordinate, and humanitarian actors cannot deliver aid. Journalists, already directly targeted in this genocide, are systematically silenced, unable to document or report atrocities. The blackout effectively guarantees that war crimes and other grave violations can take place in total darkness, hidden from global scrutiny.

An escalating health crisis compounds the catastrophe. Hospitals across Gaza warn of imminent collapse due to Israel’s ongoing blockade on fuel deliveries. Without fuel to power generators, lifesaving services, including ambulances, oxygen stations, and major hospitals, will shut down within days, condemning countless patients to death.

Beyond violating fundamental principles of international humanitarian law and the laws governing military occupation, the repeated internet shutdowns in Gaza constitute a gross violation of basic human rights. Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) explicitly guarantees the freedoms of expression and access to information. As the UN Human Rights Committee has clarified, any restriction on these rights must be legal, necessary, and proportionate—criteria that blanket blackouts and deliberate attacks on infrastructure categorically fail to meet.

UN Special Rapporteurs have repeatedly condemned the use of internet blackouts in conflict settings, describing them as unlawful, disproportionate, and highly damaging, especially when employed to conceal human rights violations and obstruct access to vital humanitarian work. These shutdowns prevent civilians from accessing life-saving information and cripple humanitarian actors in carrying out essential relief operations, directly undermining the core tenets of civilian protection during armed conflict.

Skyline International for Human Rights stresses that these repeated internet blackouts in Gaza constitute a deliberate and systematic weaponization of connectivity as a method of warfare. Such actions flagrantly violate international humanitarian law, including the prohibitions on collective punishment and deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure. They also violate fundamental rights to freedom of expression and access to information protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

We urgently call for:

• The immediate and full restoration of telecommunications and internet services in Gaza.
• An end to Israel’s deliberate targeting of civilian telecommunications infrastructure and the blockade on fuel and equipment needed for repairs.
• Protection of journalists, media workers, and humanitarian actors, and unimpeded access for them to report and operate safely.
• Robust accountability mechanisms to investigate the weaponization of internet shutdowns and other grave violations against civilians in Gaza.

The internet and communication blackout imposed today is not an isolated incident but part of a broader, unlawful strategy to disconnect Gaza from the world. Preventing reporting in this way allows atrocities to continue in darkness, with no witnesses.