In Gaza, Keeping the Internet on Can Cost Lives but Also Save Them

 Displaced Palestinians make their way as they flee the eastern part of Khan Younis following an Israeli army evacuation order, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip August 8, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians make their way as they flee the eastern part of Khan Younis following an Israeli army evacuation order, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip August 8, 2024. (Reuters)
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In Gaza, Keeping the Internet on Can Cost Lives but Also Save Them

 Displaced Palestinians make their way as they flee the eastern part of Khan Younis following an Israeli army evacuation order, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip August 8, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians make their way as they flee the eastern part of Khan Younis following an Israeli army evacuation order, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip August 8, 2024. (Reuters)

Forced to flee his home yet again as war raged across the Gaza Strip, Khalil Salim was desperate to get his family to safety but how could he be sure he wasn’t leading them deeper into danger?

He needed up-to-date information and so he went online and checked out the official social media accounts of the Israeli army and other online sources.

"We would take instructions from the internet. We couldn't assess the internal fighting ... so we would follow the news and channels and look at Facebook and see what people wrote," Salim said.

But when he could not get a signal or a connection, he was left in the dark, with no sure way of plotting a safe route.

"What was pitiful is that (the Israeli army) would put instructions on their Facebook and we wouldn't even have internet. It would be very difficult for us to find out that there were instructions to do this and not that. Sometimes we would spend two days, sometimes a week, without internet."

In the rubble of Gaza, it can be difficult and dangerous to get online but tech activists and Palestinian engineers are making sure the enclave does not go totally dark, securing a precious digital lifeline for thousands of people.

Preserving this connection comes at a price and the risks can be deadly for desperate users clambering to high ground to get a signal or engineers travelling to dangerous areas to repair damaged cables or telecoms towers.

In May, an Israeli strike hit a gathering of people outside a Gaza City shop that provides an internet signal for customers, killing at least three people and wounding more than 20, medics said.

Salim knows all too well what drove those people to that shop.

"Internet is life; without the internet, (life) has no meaning, it is like a prison," the IT engineer and pharmacist told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Al-Mawasi, an area on the western outskirts of Khan Younis where he now lives with his family after fleeing the border city of Rafah.

THE GIFT OF ACCESS

Israel launched its offensive on Gaza after fighters from the Hamas Islamist militant group attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel responded by assaulting the coastal enclave, vowing to annihilate the group. Almost 40,000 people have since been killed in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza’s health authorities, with thousands more bodies feared buried under the rubble.

Gaza's economy and infrastructure have been devastated by months of relentless bombing and conflict. Houses, roads, schools, and hospitals have been obliterated and around 70% of the infrastructure needed for communication and technology has been damaged or destroyed.

Tech entrepreneurs outside Gaza are using electronic SIMs, or eSIMs, to help strengthen Gaza's frayed digital lifeline.

An eSIM gives users the option of activating a mobile network's cellular data plan without actually having a physical SIM card. They can be activated using a QR code, allowing users to connect in roaming mode to a foreign network.

For example, Gaza Online, a volunteer group, provides free eSIMs to families to help them stay connected to each other. The group relies on in-kind donations of eSIM activation codes and matches them with families in Gaza through WhatsApp.

Early in the war, an eSIM allowed Salim to oversee the evacuation of his daughter, who was wounded in an Israeli bombing in October, to Egypt and then Tunisia. He was also able to advise doctors on her care.

Nadine Hassan, Gaza Online's chief operating officer who is based in Jordan, said her group’s work is becoming "more challenging every day" with funding a particular issue.

The group has been finding it increasingly difficult to buy eSIMs online as vendors keep closing down their accounts, saying they violated terms of service by buying in bulk.

Activating an eSIM requires a relatively new smartphone model and updated software, Hassan said, a tall order for people in Gaza who are preoccupied with securing access to food and clean water.

Another hurdle, and something of a mystery, is the fact that most of the eSIMs only seem to work at night.

"We have no idea why and we can't find an explanation for it," she said.

ENGINEERS RISK LIVES

Even before the war, telecoms services in Gaza were fragile; a World Bank report from earlier this year said the enclave was the only place in the world that still relied on "obsolete" 2G technology and had no mobile broadband coverage.

By February, the enclave's largest telecoms provider, Paltel, had reported more than 10 total collapses in service provision since Oct. 7. Even when its network has been partly working, it has struggled to maintain service in many areas because of the fighting.

Despite the ongoing battles between Israeli forces and Hamas militants, telecoms engineers have been working to restore services, with reports of several being killed while trying to fix damaged infrastructure.

Speaking to the Thomson Reuters Foundation in March, Hani Alami, who heads East Jerusalem-based internet service provider Coolnet, said one of his teams working in the center of Gaza was hit in February during a suspected Israeli attack, with two engineers killed and one injured.

Alami said he had coordinated his team's movements with the Israeli army before they headed out.

"They gave us the green light to move from the first point and while the vehicle was moving on its track, they bombed the vehicle," he said.

Asked about the alleged incident, the Israeli army said in a statement to the Thomson Reuters Foundation that it "follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm."

Some activists have called on Israel to observe a digital ceasefire as the war drags on.

In an article for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Brett Solomon, former executive director of Internet advocacy watchdog Access Now, said "digital ceasefires must be annexed to traditional ceasefire agreements, encompassing everything from connectivity to censorship."

For now, as he tries to rebuild his life in a half-built house close to the sea, Salim feels more isolated than ever. He can no longer use his eSIM as he is too far from Israeli telecoms towers, he said.

Instead, he must make do with local providers who charge exorbitant fees to go online. It can also take up to a month to get the necessary approvals to get an Internet connection.

That's just too long for people who might have to flee the bombs and bullets again as the conflict waxes and wanes.

Salim would like to get his IT business up and running again so that he can provide for his family. But with no internet, there can be no work.

"If they see you cannot even do a meeting, they become convinced that you cannot do the job."



What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
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What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)

Flash floods in Texas killed at least 100 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend and left others still missing, including girls attending a summer camp. The devastation along the Guadalupe River, outside of San Antonio, has drawn a massive search effort as officials face questions over their preparedness and the speed of their initial actions.

Here's what to know about the deadly flooding, the colossal weather system that drove it in and around Kerr County, Texas, and ongoing efforts to identify victims.

Massive rain hit at just the wrong time, in a flood-prone place

The floods grew to their worst at the midpoint of a long holiday weekend when many people were asleep.

The Texas Hill Country in the central part of the state is naturally prone to flash flooding due to the dry dirt-packed areas where the soil lets rain skid along the surface of the landscape instead of soaking it up. Friday's flash floods started with a particularly bad storm that dropped most of its 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in the dark early morning hours.

After a flood watch notice midday Thursday, the National Weather Service office issued an urgent warning around 4 a.m. that raised the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life. By at least 5:20 a.m., some in the Kerrville City area say water levels were getting alarmingly high. The massive rain flowing down hills sent rushing water into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes.

Death toll is expected to rise and the number of missing is uncertain

In Kerr County, home to youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 75 people, including 27 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said Monday morning. Fatalities in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths to 94 as of Monday afternoon.

Ten girls and a counselor were still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.

For past campers, the tragedy turned happy memories into grief.

Beyond the Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, the number of missing from other nearby campgrounds and across the region had not been released.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday had said that there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said during a Monday news conference he couldn't give an estimate of the number of people still missing, only saying “it is a lot.”

Officials face scrutiny over flash flood warnings

Survivors have described the floods as a “pitch black wall of death” and said they received no emergency warnings.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, who lives along the Guadalupe River, said Saturday that “nobody saw this coming.” Officials have referred to it as a “100-year-flood,” meaning that the water levels were highly unlikely based on the historical record.

And records behind those statistics don’t always account for human-caused climate change. Though it’s hard to connect specific storms to a warming planet so soon after they occur, meteorologists say that a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and allow severe storms to dump even more rain.

Additionally, officials have come under scrutiny about why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner than 4 a.m. or told to evacuate.

Rice said Monday that he did not immediately know if there had been any communication between law enforcement and the summer camps between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Friday. But Rice said various factors, including spotty cell service in some of the more isolated areas of Kerr County and cell towers that might have gone out of service during the weather, could have hindered communication.

Rice said officials want to finish the search and rescue and then review possible issues with cell towers, radios and emergency alerts.

Officials noted that the public can grow weary from too many flooding alerts or forecasts that turn out to be minor.

Kerr county officials said they had presented a proposal for a more robust flood warning system, similar to a tornado warning system, but that members of the public reeled at the cost.

Monumental clearing and rebuilding effort

The flash floods have erased campgrounds and torn homes from their foundations.

"It’s going to be a long time before we’re ever able to clean it up, much less rebuild it," Kelly said Saturday after surveying the destruction from a helicopter.

Other massive flooding events have driven residents and business owners to give up, including in areas struck last year by Hurricane Helene.

President Donald Trump said he would likely visit the flood zone on Friday.

AP photographers have captured the scale of the destruction, and one of Texas' largest rescue and recovery efforts.