- SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has offered his Starlink internet services to aid organizations in Gaza.
- Communications and internet connectivity have been shut down in Gaza since Friday.
- Israel’s communications minister said the country would fight the effort.
Elon Musk said that Starlink satellite internet will be made available to aid organizations in Gaza after communications were cut off late Friday.
Internet and cellular services in the Gaza Strip went down after Israel bombarded the territory. It then began its first ground incursions into Gaza.
The emergency 101 telephone number wasn’t working, meaning that ambulances could not be called. Many journalists and aid workers in the Gaza Strip were also out of contact, outlets including The Guardian reported.
Israel’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, later responded to Musk’s post on X, saying Israel would fight against the SpaceX CEO’s effort to offer Starlink to Gaza.
“Israel will use all means at its disposal to fight this,” Karhi said in the post.
Israel will use all means at its disposal to fight this.
HAMAS will use it for terrorist activities. There is no doubt about it, we know it, and musk knows it. HAMAS is ISIS.
Perhaps Musk would be willing to condition it with the release of our abducted babies, sons, daughters,… https://t.co/pRNOlnINbZ
— 🇮🇱שלמה קרעי – Shlomo Karhi (@shlomo_karhi) October 28, 2023
In a post on X, Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the loss of telecommunications and internet access, calling it “unacceptable.”
In response to her comment, Musk said: “Starlink will support connectivity to internationally recognized aid organizations in Gaza.”
Starlink will support connectivity to internationally recognized aid organizations in Gaza.
[ComStar]
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2023
There has not yet been any confirmation that Starlink has formally offered its services beyond Musk’s tweet.
It’s also unclear whether there are any Starlink terminals, which are required for the satellite internet connection to work, in Gaza, per The Wall Street Journal.
Karhi said there had been talks with SpaceX about using Starlink services in areas bordering the conflict zones, Tech Crunch reported.
The role of Starlink connectivity in the Ukraine war has attracted controversy over the control it offered Musk in the conflict. He’s been accused of shutting off the Starlink network in Crimea during a Ukrainian attack on a Russian naval fleet last year.
SpaceX did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Insider, made outside normal working hours.
Mark Regev, a senior advisor to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told BBC Radio 4 on Saturday morning that “in military operations conducted by the British army, the American army, often it is standard behavior to disrupt the communications of your enemy.”
However, he said he was waiting for a “full briefing” from the Israeli military to determine why comms were down, per the BBC.
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