Billionaire Elon Musk said on Saturday that his Starlink satellite service would support internet access for “internationally recognized aid organizations in Gaza,” which have been facing a telecommunications outage since Friday.
Starlink is a network of satellites in low Earth orbit that can provide internet to remote locations or areas where normal communications infrastructure is disabled.
Musk, who owns Starlink operator SpaceX, responded to a post by Democratic US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in which she called the communications blackout in Gaza “unacceptable.”
“Starlink will support connectivity to internationally recognized aid organizations in Gaza,” Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter, which he also owns.
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The Israeli communications minister threatened to cut off contact with Starlink if Musk continued. On X, Karhi tweeted: “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. Maybe Musk would be willing to make this contingent on the release of our kidnapped babies, sons, daughters and elderly. All of them!”
“Until then, my office will cut all ties with Starlink,” he said.
Destroyed buildings in Gaza City, Saturday, October 28, 2023. (AP/Abed Khaled)
Responding to Musk’s offer, World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “We could really benefit from Starlink as we try to connect with our workers and health facilities in Gaza. How can we do it?”
UN organizations and NGOs had already reported on Saturday that they had lost contact with their teams in the Gaza Strip.
“Hospitals and humanitarian operations cannot continue without communication,” wrote Lynn Hastings, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator, on X.
Israel responded with airstrikes on terror targets in the Gaza Strip after the Palestinian enclave’s Hamas rulers launched an unprecedented terror attack on Israel on October 7. This Saturday morning, around 2,500 Hamas terrorists entered southern Israel by land, sea and air, capturing over 20 communities and killing over 1,400 people, mostly civilians, including entire families and attendees at an outdoor music festival.
Terrorists also kidnapped about 230 people, including children and the elderly, and are holding them hostage in Gaza.
Since Israel launched retaliatory air and artillery strikes on the day of the attack, at least 8,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip, according to the territory’s Hamas-controlled health ministry.
These figures cannot be independently verified and include Palestinian terrorists killed by Israel as well as Palestinian civilians killed by misguided rockets fired by terrorist groups in Gaza.
Israel says it killed 1,500 Hamas terrorists in Israel on and after October 7.
Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service was also deployed in Ukraine shortly after the Russian invasion in February 2022.
This Sept. 25, 2022, file photo shows an antenna of the Starlink satellite-based broadband system donated by U.S. tech billionaire Elon Musk in Izyum, Kharkiv region, during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Yasuyoshi CHIBA/AFP)
The network, which helps increasingly high-tech soldiers operate in areas where other means of communication fail, is an important battlefield tool for Kiev.
In September, Musk said he stopped Ukraine from wiping out Russia’s Black Sea Fleet last year by denying Internet access via Starlink.
“There was an urgent request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The apparent intent was to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor,” Musk wrote on X.
The statement sparked strong condemnation from Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.