2:32 p.m. ET, October 28, 2023
Because of the communications blackout, medics are struggling to reach wounded Gazans and families are unable to speak
By CNN’s Zahid Mahmoud and Livvy Doherty in London and Abeer Salmaan and Kareem Khadder in Jerusalem A near-total communications blackout has affected the work of medical staff in Gaza, with medics unable to reach the injured and hospitals unable to communicate with each other to kick.
Dr. Mohamad Al-Rayan, a doctor at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, said there were delays among medics in treating people injured by Israeli airstrikes overnight.
“Paramedics could not reach (the injured) because they had no communication with them. There were some solutions to the problem, but the situation was very difficult and dangerous. “The injured arrived at the hospital many hours later as we could not reach them quickly and directly,” he said.
He told CNN that hospitals in Gaza have also lost contact with each other, making the transfer of patients in need of special surgery between hospitals even more difficult.
A journalist in central Gaza told CNN that Israeli artillery fire “did not stop” on Saturday. Video filmed by Hassan Eslayeh showed ambulances and cars arriving at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital while crowds of people waited outside the hospital’s entrance. Another video showed a young man lying on the hospital floor while doctors operated on him.
Eslayeh said the injured and dead who were taken to the hospital were victims of artillery shelling and not airstrikes.
Families who cannot speak: CNN producer in Gaza, Ibrahim Dahman, said he was having difficulty contacting relatives in the enclave amid the power outage.
“I can’t reach her and don’t know anything about her,” Dahman said in one of several brief voice recordings sent to CNN colleagues on Saturday, using a phone with a foreign SIM card that intermittently allowed him to connect WhatsApp made possible.
“Even if they were shot at or killed or wounded, I wouldn’t know anything,” he said. Since fleeing Gaza City with his wife and children on October 9, Dahman has been using WhatsApp to communicate with friends, family and colleagues.
Now he says, “There is no internet in the entire Gaza Strip” — another cause for concern for him and the other families he hosts with him in the southern town of Khan Younis.
“Everyone is gloomy, everyone is afraid. … This is a big, big shock for everyone,” Dahman said.
Jawwal and Ooredoo, two mobile phone companies operating in Gaza, and Paltel, a landline operator, said in separate statements on Saturday that their services in the Strip remained down.