Israel knocked out internet and cell service in Gaza on Friday as its troops prepared to enter the terrorist stronghold but were forced by the Biden White House to restore communications within 48 hours.
Israel's action took place as Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari hinted that the upward tempo of air strikes was a prelude to ground action.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said ground forces were “expanding their activity” Friday evening in Gaza and “acting with great force ... to achieve the objectives of the war.” Israel says its strikes target Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that the militants operate from among civilians, putting them in danger.
The Hamas media center reported heavy nighttime clashes with Israeli forces at several places, including what it said was an Israeli incursion east of the refugee camp of Bureij in the central Gaza Strip. Asked about the report, the Israeli military reiterated early Saturday that it had been carrying out targeted raids and expanding strikes with the aim of “preparing the ground for future stages of the operation.”
By Saturday, internet and cell service were being restored.
Two days after cellular and internet service abruptly vanished for most of Gaza amid a heavy Israeli bombardment, the crowded enclave came back online Sunday as communications systems were gradually restored.
That’s a welcome development for Gaza following a communications blackout that began late Friday as Israel expanded ground operations and launched intense airstrikes that illuminated the night sky with furious orange flashes. A rare few Palestinians with international SIM cards or satellite phones took it upon themselves to get the news out.
By Sunday morning, phone and internet communications had been restored to many people in Gaza, according to telecommunications providers in the area, Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and confirmation on the ground.
What caused the about-face by Israel's military command? Pressure from the White House.
A senior U.S. official said Sunday that Israel had shut off communications in the enclave of 2.3 million and the United States had pressured the government to switch them back on. The Israelis did not tell their U.S. counterparts why they had switched off communications, the official said.
“We made it clear they had to be turned back on,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations. “The communications are back on. They need to stay back on.”
Jake Sullivan gave more details Sunday on Jake Tapper's "State of the Union."
Speaking to MSNBC on Sunday, Sullivan underscored the importance of communications networks in Gaza, saying, “We do feel strongly that the restoration of that communications was a critical thing.”
“Because aid workers need to be able to communicate, civilians need to be able to communicate, and of course, journalists need to be able to document what is happening in Gaza to report it to the wider world,” he said.
Sure, internet connectivity aided aid workers. But it also aided Hamas. Most of the press in Gaza seem to have a personal interest in seeing Hamas emerge victorious and armed Hamas terrorists (as an aside, why is it that no one mewling about the Geneva Conventions ever wants to mention that Hamas terrorists are illegal combatants and not covered by the Law of Land Warfare?) use internet and cell connections to plan terrorist attacks, monitor the progress of the IDF, and coordinate combat operations.
What we are beginning to see is the White House imposing the same nonsense restrictions on Israel that it has on Ukraine. It is almost as if the policy of the United States is to drag out every conflict as long as possible and maximize suffering because of escalation or something.
The US has gradually increased the quantity and quality of weapons flowing to Ukraine and, at the same time, put targets of operational and strategic importance off-limits to attack. It took 20 months of warfare to agree to provide Ukraine with ATACMS and begin training F-16 pilots, unnecessarily extending that war. This was all done because of Jake Sullivan's unreasoning fear that caused intestinal palpitations every time Putin or one of his lackeys mentioned a "red line," see Week 86. The Very Resistible Force Meets the Immovable Object in Donbas for more on the subject. Now, you can see the same impulse at work as Iran blisters.
“We have had numerous conversations – from the prime minister and the president on down, and certainly among military leaders and their counterparts – about Israeli military objectives and about the steps that they have taken and intend to take to achieve those objectives,” he said.
“We’ve asked them hard questions, the same hard questions that we would ask ourselves if we were seeking to conduct an operation to take out a terrorist threat,” he went on. “We’ve pressed them on questions like objectives and matching means to objectives, about both tactical and strategic issues associated with this operation.”
Sullivan said Hamas was “making life extremely difficult for Israel” by using civilians as human shields and placing its rocket infrastructure among civilian populations.
“That creates an added burden for Israel. But it does not lessen Israel’s responsibility under international humanitarian law to distinguish between terrorists and civilians, and to protect the lives of innocent people,” he said.
The meddling in Israel's entirely just chastisement of Hamas will result in more Israelis and Gazans dead because imposing limits on violence in warfare does not add to the humanity of essentially inhumane activity. It merely drags it out to ensure more and more people are killed; factually, Sullivan is wrong when he says, "It does not lessen Israel’s responsibility under international humanitarian law to distinguish between terrorists and civilians, and to protect the lives of innocent people." Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions says:
The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations.
The International Criminal Court statute covers the same ground.
Utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations” constitutes a war crime in international armed conflicts.
It is Hamas' obligation to ensure civilians are removed from possible targets and not used to shield terrorists or their fortifications (Hamas Leader Says They 'Need the Blood of Women, Children, and the Elderly' to Inspire Terrorist Attacks).
The reason for White House meddling is apparent. The Biden administration is heavily infiltrated by Iranian agents who are developing US policy for the Middle East (Shocking: Shadowy Iranian 'Youth Network' Secretly Influences America's Foreign Policy, What Was the Role of the Iranian Spy Ring in the US Government in the 'Intelligence Blunder' With Hamas? and Why Is Alleged Iranian Operative Ariane Tabatabai Still Working in the Pentagon?) and Biden desperately wants to complete the Obama project of creating a regional superpower out of Iran. But like everything else this bunch touches, you can rely on it turning to crap.