Home / Publications / Internet shutdowns in armed conflict: a typology of harms Internet shutdowns in armed conflict: a typology of harms MARWA FATAFTA @m @marwasf arwasf PUBLISHED: 11 DECEMBER 2025 LAST UPDATED: 11 DECEMBER 2025 I NTRODUCTION In the armed conflicts of today, shutting down the internet has become an increasingly common, deliberate, and systematic act of warfare. Across conflict zones, belligerent and warring parties attack telecommunications networks and ICT infrastructure, impose communications blackouts, and limit or prohibit access to equipment, fuel, and repair parts — among other disruptive tactics deployed to collectively harm, isolate, terrorize, silence, and control entire populations. According to #KeepItOn coalition data, armed conflict was the leading trigger globally for internet shutdowns in 2023 and 2024. This dangerous development demands serious attention. Whether in Ukraine or Myanmar, Ethiopia or Azerbaijan, Sudan or Gaza, internet shutdowns exacerbate people’s suffering. For people trapped amid rubble or under siege, connectivity is a literal lifeline, without which they cannot contact emergency services, locate missing family members, document human rights violations, or access vital, sometimes life-saving information. Yet these harms remain largely invisible, underestimated, or dismissed. Internet shutdowns in wartime, and their human impacts, are being treated as inevitable, even expected outcomes of lawful warfare, instead of being understood as deliberate, unlawful acts of warfare and repression. This misconception fosters impunity and leaves civilians more vulnerable. This report aims to unpack the serious harms that internet shutdowns inflict on civilian populations in armed conflict. Drawing on testimonies collected from Gaza and Sudan over the past two years, we have mapped and classified an array of direct and indirect human rights abuses and violations caused by internet shutdowns, demonstrating why safeguarding connectivity in conflict zones should be urgently reevaluated as a priority for protecting civilians and their dignity. I NTERNET SHUTDOWNS IN GAZA AND SUDAN: A RECAP Deliberate disruptions to connectivity during armed conflict can take different forms; from direct attacks on ICT infrastructure and repair crews, cyberattacks, throttling, and restrictions on mobile data, to blocking the import and installation of communications equipment or access to the fuel needed to run telecommunications networks. Irrespective of how these shutdowns occur, the result is oLen the same: cutting off populations from communication, information, and assistance, as a means of asserting con-