Elon Musk/Reuters
The world's richest man and owner of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, managed to stir up a storm when he announced on Saturday that he intends to connect organizations inside the Gaza Strip through Starlink, his satellite internet service, after the internet in Gaza was cut off as a result of IDF strikes. Now, in response to Shlomo Krei's tweet, he is trying to defend his decision.
"We are not naïve, we will take extraordinary steps to confirm that Starlink is only used for humanitarian reasons," Musk replied to a tweet by Karai on X (formerly Twitter), adding: "Moreover, we will conduct checks with the US and Israeli governments, prior to activation."
The Israeli reaction last night to Musk's remarks was harsh. "Hamas will use this for terrorist activity. There is no doubt about it. We know it, and Musk knows it," Karai wrote. "Musk can condition this on the release of our abducted babies, boys, girls, elderly people. Until then, the Ministry of Communications under my leadership will cut all ties with Starlink."
We are not so naive.
Per my post, no Starlink terminal has attempted to connect from Gaza.
If one does, we will take extraordinary measures to confirm that it is used *only* for purely humanitarian reasons.
Moreover, we will do a security check with both the US and Israeli...
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2023
The project is based on thousands of tiny satellites that cruise in Earth's low Earth orbit, and from there these transmit data to receiving dishes - the same receivers of the company that are on the ground. The goal of the Starlink project is to provide internet from space, to anyone and anywhere on the planet.
This is a system of thousands of satellites (as of July 2023, there are about 4,519 satellites, of which 4,487 satellites are active) in low Earth orbit. These satellites communicate with dedicated ground receivers provided by the company.
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