DUBAI, May 29. /TASS/. Israeli authorities have cut off communications and the Internet in Gaza’s Rafah located near the border with Egypt, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported.

According to it, communications and the Internet were cut off in Rafah amid intensified artillery and airstrikes by the Israeli army.

Qatar's Al Jazeera reported that the Israel Defense Forces also carried out raids in southern and western Rafah, bombing and shelling residential buildings in the city center. Israeli tanks are stationed in the Yibna and Shabura refugee camps in southern Rafah.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian movement Hamas staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking over 240 hostages, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians before the crisis, and has been delivering air strikes on Gaza as well as some parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes have also been reported on the West Bank.