Is there an internet blackout in Gaza?

The UNRWA in Palestine has been one of the leading organisations to back up social media accounts of an effective internet blackout in Gaza enforced by Israel.

This seems to have begun the night the Madleen, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla's humanitarian aid boat with 12 activists of assorted nationalities on board, was boarded and brought into Israel.

The UNRWA message on X was posted on 12 June to say, 'We have lost all contact with our UNRWA colleagues in Gaza, communications have been cut off.'

'This morning, for the first time in months, we did not receive their morning messages to say, "good morning" and "we are fine/alive",' the UNRWA post continues.

'We anxiously wait to hear from our colleagues,' it ends.

Similar accounts have been put out on social media by various small handles using eSims and such alternative technology, talking about the alleged internet blackout.

Notably, this comes even as thousands of activists from the world over began a march to the Rafah borders in protest against the media and aid blockade by Israel — as one interlocutor pointed out.

The UNRWA's operations in Palestine were banned last year by the Israeli government, which argues the UN is in collusion with Hamas.

This was before the aid blockade following the Ramzan ceasefire, which saw all aid operations stopped — until the mysterious (and some would say 'menacing') Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, purportedly backed by the US and apparently by Israel itself, came into the picture.

Now, in the light of the overnight attacks on Iran, it becomes a question whether the internet shutdown was intended to keep clues as to Israel's immediate intentions in the dark... or is it just another form of deprivation to be visited on the displaced, starved and bombarded population of Palestine?

Or... is there something worse to come in Israel's genocide operations or already in motion in Gaza?