'I left rubble, death and fear as Gaza became a graveyard'

As Gaza’s internet is cut again, Palestinian writer Eman Alhaj Ali — currently living in Ireland — shares her personal story of exile and heartbreak

Eman Alhaj Ali: In the Irish National Demonstration

It has been almost a week since I last contacted my family in Gaza. On June 11, a deliberate Israeli airstrike hit Gaza’s main fibre‑optic cable, triggering a devastating internet blackout that silenced what little communication remained. The outage lasted over two days and six hours. Limited connectivity partially returned on June 14 after urgent humanitarian appeals allowed Palestinian technical crews to carry out emergency repairs.

But just as a faint hope emerged, it was shattered again. On June 17, large parts of central and southern Gaza plunged back into darkness when another fibre‑optic cable was cut along Al‑Rasheed Street — just a day after a similar disruption on June 16 near Khan Younis.