RAMALLAH, Palestine

Phone and internet services were cut again across the Gaza Strip amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes, the Palestine Cellular Communications Company (Jawwal) said Tuesday.

“A complete outage of fixed-line and internet communication services has occurred within the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing (Israeli) aggression,” the company said in a statement.

“Our technical teams are diligently working to restore services despite the hazardous field conditions,” it added.

The latest cut is the eighth since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7.

Israel has launched a massive military campaign on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 20,915 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 54,918 others, according to local health authorities.

The onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave's infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million people displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicines.

Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

Tel Aviv has vowed to destroy Hamas and ensure the release of all hostages taken during the October attack. Some of them were returned after a temporary truce in November in exchange for some Palestinian prisoners.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio