Israel: Elon Musk connects satellite internet to Gaza hospital
Against the backdrop of a war that rages on between Israel and Hamas, Elon Musk has activated his Starlink satellite that is connected to a hospital in the Gaza Strip, providing internet connectivity to the overwhelmed medical staff, reported Reuters on July 24th.
The high-speed internet will enable potentially life-saving medical consultations as staff can now engage in real-time video calling, the UAE foreign ministry said in February.
“Starlink is now active in a Gaza hospital with the support of @UAEmediaoffice and @Israel,” Musk posted on X, more than five months after the Israeli government approved Starlink’s use in the hospital in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The satellite connectivity comes more than six months after Elon Musk’s visit to Gaza after Israel turned its destroyed towns and villages into tourist sites.
Due to the lack of power and fuel to operate provider centres, internet connectivity in Gaza is poor. This makes it harder for medical staff and rescue teams to work and restricts hospital services and the health ministry’s centralised system.
READ: desperate Gazan patients accommodated in Tunisian hospitals
The Gulf Arab state’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, thanked the billionaire entrepreneur for supporting the UAE field hospital in Gaza, where many medical facilities have been destroyed in the ongoing nine months of war.
The UAE, an oil producer and regional finance and tourism hub, signed a deal normalising ties with Israel in 2020 along with Bahrain and Morocco. Sudan later also sealed a normalisation agreement with Israel.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, and devastated much of the coastal territory.
With the fast internet connectivity to a hospital in Gaza, due to Musk’s satellite, hopefully, injuries sustained by civilians can be treated quicker, resulting in more lives saved.
Reuters.
