Internet services were disrupted in Lebanon on Sunday amid diesel shortages, the state provider said, according to The Associated Press.
Imad Kreidieh, the head of state internet provider Ogero, tweeted that starting early Sunday a major station in west Beirut, al-Mazraa, would run out of diesel and go offline. The outage affected over 26,000 subscribers, including the country’s General Security operation rooms, he told Al-Jadeed TV.
By midday Sunday, a resident donated diesel, allowing the station to get back online, he said. Meanwhile, another neighborhood in east Beirut, Achrafieh, was out of diesel and operated on batteries.
“The situation is unbearable,” Kreidieh was quoted as having told the TV station.
Lebanon has been grappling with round-the-clock power cuts that last at least 20 hours a day due to a financial crisis that has hampered key imports, including fuel for power stations.
Last week, the country suffered a nationwide blackout after protesters stormed a key substation and tampered with the electrical equipment.
Internet and telecom services already were expensive in Lebanon. In 2019, a tax imposed on WhatsApp services sparked nationwide protests that turned into a denunciation of the entire political elite.
The international community has long demanded a complete overhaul of Lebanon's electricity sector, which has cost the government more than $40 billion since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
Lebanon has reached an agreement on bringing Jordanian electricity and Egyptian gas into the country via war-torn Syria, while Hezbollah has separately started hydrocarbon deliveries from Iran.
The shipments from Iran are being portrayed as a victory by Hezbollah.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati criticized the Iranian fuel shipments imported by Hezbollah, saying they constitute a breach of Lebanon's sovereignty.
The United States has also denounced Hezbollah's deliveries of Iranian fuel to Lebanon as a “public relations stunt” and warned that Tehran remained under sanctions.