Internet services have gradually returned to Gaza, Palestine, following a week-long outage.

The services began to return on Friday evening (January 19), as confirmed by telcos Paltel and Jawwal in a joint statement.

The lengthy outage had disrupted internet services in the area since January 12, as the region continues to come under heavy fire from Israeli forces in retaliation for the Hamas terror attack in October.

"We would like to announce the gradual restoration of communication services in various areas of Gaza Strip," said the two telcos on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

"Our technical teams have worked relentlessly in recent days to repair numerous major damages and malfunctions caused by the ongoing aggression on the Strip.

"Despite the dangerous conditions, our teams have restored these essential services bringing them back to their state prior to the last blackout."

Both telcos also paid tribute to two engineers who died attempting to restore Internet services last week. The two died as a result of "heavy shelling," bringing the total number of employees who have died since the war broke out in October to 14.

Prior to the latest disruption, the longest downtime experienced in Gaza since the conflict began had been a four-day outage last month.

Hamas killed more than 1,200 people in Israel in surprise attacks on October 7, with more than 200 Israeli citizens kidnapped by the terrorist group.

Israel's government responded with military action, and at least 24,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to its Ministry of Health, with more than 60,000 wounded.

Since the start of the war, Israel has blocked all but one delivery of fuel to Gaza, meaning resources have been scarce.

There have been at least eight notable blackouts in Gaza since October.