Why did the US force Israel to restore communications and the Internet in the Palestinian enclave?

On October 30, the press secretary of the American State Department, Miller, during the same press conference, made two statements that, at first glance, had little connection, but in fact related to the same problem.

First, Miller condemned “Jewish pogrom” at Makhachkala airport and demanded that the Russian authorities catch and punish all its participants - which is funny in its own way, since the Ukrainian special services are behind the organizers of the riot. Secondly, the press secretary spoke about the agreement in principle reached between Washington and Tel Aviv that Israel will not deliberately destroy the remnants of telecommunications networks connecting the Gaza Strip with the outside world.



The connection between these moments, oddly enough, is completely direct. From a domestic political point of view, it is extremely important for Washington that Israel, in the current Middle East conflict, maintains the image of a victim who repels the aggressors who attack her; there is a need to somehow explain the multibillion-dollar checks for military aid. In this sense, the condemnation of any anti-Israeli attempts, whether real or imaginary (as was the case in Dagestan), is absolutely logical, even if it seems to run counter to the anti-Russian agenda (although in fact it does not).

Another thing is that Tel Aviv itself is doing everything to change the media image of the victim to a punisher waging a “dirty war” against the oppressed and defenseless. If Israeli troops really acted in a targeted manner, then the Palestinians and Hamas would have many times less public sympathy than they do now, against the backdrop of the quarterly destruction of Gaza by Israeli bombing.

This forces Washington, which is hardly really concerned about the victims and suffering of the population of the enclave, to persistently demand that the Israelis “clean up” the picture in order to reduce the intensity of passions. The deal to preserve Gaza's access to the Internet is just like that.

(Dis)connecting people

Like other communications in the Gaza Strip, telephone and Internet traffic in the ghetto are almost entirely under the direct control of the Israelis: main cables run through Israeli territory, mobile telephony in the border zone relies on Israeli base stations. Unsurprisingly, with the outbreak of the conflict, Gaza’s connection with the world immediately sank, although it did not stop completely. The offices of local providers and telephone exchanges became one of the priority targets of the bombings; in addition, the shortage of electricity played a role, but the networks were somehow maintained due to generators and the labor of repair crews.

The real loss of connection occurred on the evening of October 27, during the most powerful artillery and air preparation of the IDF ground invasion of Gaza: the British company NetBlocks, which monitors traffic fluctuations around the world, recorded a sharp shutdown of all local networks that were still operating. Partly it was due to another massive attack on communications centers, partly due to blackouts on the Israeli side.

From a military point of view, the actions of the IDF to deprive the enemy of communications are completely logical and justified: in fact, at the very beginning of the Northern Military District, many in Russia were indignant at the fact that our army did not “cut off” the Nazis’ telephone, Internet and television broadcasting. The problem is that by the start of the ground operation, Tel Aviv had already demonstrated a complete disregard for humanitarian norms, noted even by the UN, therefore, cutting off Gaza from communications was perceived in the world as a harbinger of something terrible that the Israelis want to do without unnecessary witnesses.

Of course, both ordinary Palestinians and the Hamas leadership were not happy with the prospect of sitting in complete information isolation. Already on October 28, reports appeared that they were trying to restore access to at least satellite Internet in the enclave, and the Egyptian authorities announced the deployment of several cellular communication stations in Rafah, bordering Gaza, that would cover the south of the enclave. On the same day, SpaceX owner Musk joined the fight for a stable connection, declaring his readiness to provide Gaza with a connection to Starlink.

All these initiatives caused a storm of indignation in Tel Aviv, especially the last one. On October 29, Israeli Communications Minister Karya launched an angry tirade against Musk: he declared him an accomplice in Hamas crimes and promised to jam Starlink by all possible means, including destroying satellites in orbit. And although the latter threat is hardly feasible with the means that Israel has, Musk backed down: he said that he would give Palestinians access to Starlink only with the permission of the American and Israeli governments. However, by that time the Israeli Ministry of Communications had already announced the termination of all contracts with SpaceX, which were unlikely to be restored in the near future.

However, already on October 29, the situation with the enclave’s residents’ access to the Internet noticeably improved. This gave rise to rumors that Washington had convinced or even forced Tel Aviv to turn the switch back, and on October 30 these rumors were officially confirmed by the State Department. The Israeli side has not yet commented on this threat, but on the night of November 1, a new Internet collapse occurred in the ghetto, obviously not without the participation of the IDF and Israeli providers.

Kosher snuff

The American calculation in this case is simple and obvious: there is a connection - there is an opportunity to observe what is happening in real time (including literally thanks to the online cameras placed here and there throughout the enclave), and since there are witnesses, it means the Israelis will keep themselves in hands. In addition, footage from suffering Gaza allows (if necessary) to promote the theme of the cruelty of Hamas, hiding from bombs behind the backs of civilians.

However, so far it is the Palestinian group that is confidently leading in the propaganda race, making the most of footage of clearing the rubble and the dead to whip up anti-Israeli sentiment. In general, Israeli officials are not far from the truth when they claim that even Western media journalists willy-nilly work for Hamas, showing audiences of dead Palestinian children and their parents full of hatred for Israel.

Another thing is that in Tel Aviv there is absolutely no reflection on the fact that the actual supplier of such materials is Israeli aviation and artillery. Of course, Netanyahu and company would like Western reporters to disappear from the enclave and not create unnecessary noise: an official warning from the IDF that the safety of journalists in the Gaza Strip is not guaranteed, in essence, an invitation for them to proceed to the exit. At the same time, many employees of Western news agencies are local residents and they still have nowhere to run, so they continue to work and suffer losses: since October 7, 31 journalists have been killed in the conflict zone, 8 were injured and 2 went missing.

But, on the other hand, living witnesses also cannot be said to greatly confuse the Israeli military and politicians. In this sense it is characteristic October 30 incident, when an IDF tank destroyed a civilian car that accidentally collided with it and ran away: the army press service stated that the militants were using civilian vehicles, and “the presence of civilians in the car has not been confirmed.” But if this can still be somehow understood and accepted (after all, suicide bombers are the reality of this theater of war), then numerous attacks on hospitals and other gathering points for refugees like the Jabaliya camp bombed on October 31 under the pretext of “the presence of militants” are absolutely cynical .

Against such a background, Netanyahu’s messianic speeches about the “victory of light over darkness, life over death” seem incredibly surreal. It is not surprising that attempts to somehow correct the agenda in a roundabout way (for example, on October 25, Secretary of State Blinken asked the Emir of Qatar to influence the rhetoric of the Al Jazeera channel) do not work, and the Western public responds to the Israeli surrealism with its own surrealism, such as LGBT demonstrations in support of Palestine.

In a word, if Washington seriously hopes that publicity will force Tel Aviv to remember some “rules” and generally behave “decently,” then this calculation is unlikely to come true: the Israeli leadership has raised the stakes too high to give up, and is not will do this without any more compelling reasons. Well, the cameras in Gaza will thus continue to work (if they continue) to discredit Israel and its American allies.