On the evening of Oct. 27, as Israel intensified its retaliatory assaults on Gaza, some 2.3 million Palestinians were cut off from the world for the first time during the war. Families, including nearly 1.9 million internally displaced Palestinians trapped in Gaza, were unable for two days to contact each other, medics were inaccessible to people in need, and media outlets and international humanitarian organizations were unable to check up on their staff.
The next day, a global campaign sprung up to help connect the Palestinians in Gaza using electronic SIMs (eSIMs). From Egypt, to Lebanon, France, Belgium, the UK, and the US, thousands of Palestinians in the diaspora, along with friends and strangers, rushed to purchase eSIMs—the digital version of the physical SIM cards that store subscriber identity data on mobile phones—gifting them to people in Gaza.
It began with Egyptian journalist Mirna El-Helbawi, who late on Oct. 28 launched #ConnectingGaza, a crowdsourced effort to facilitate the donation of eSIMs and help users in Gaza access the internet. Hundreds of interested supporters quickly contacted El-Helbawi to donate eSIMs, prompting her to create an email account to receive the QR codes and requests from Gaza for eSIMs.
Two months after militant group Hamas conducted an incursion on southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, the war in Gaza continues. More than 16,248 Palestinians have been killed by blanket Israeli shelling, and the enclave continues to suffer from frequent disruptions to telecommunications due to Israel barring sufficient fuel delivery, which has resulted in power cuts and the collapse of internet and phone services. Rebecca, an American woman who contributed to the eSIM campaign (she asked that her last name be withheld), said she is assured her contribution is helping a number of Palestinians overstep the disruptions.
“I heard about [eSIMs] on X and saw the posts by the woman who coordinated the eSIM program. I do not know who received the eSIMs and didn’t even know they were being used until I got notifications that they were running out of data,” she explained. Every couple of days, she said, she checks the mobile phone plan’s consumption and adds more to the data bundle as needed.
How the #ConnectingGaza campaign began
According to El-Helbawi’s social media posts, #ConnectingGaza has received $1.25 million worth of donated eSIMs from 94 countries, connecting more than 40,000 Gazans. (She did not reply to requests for an interview.)
Obtained from eSIM providers in Europe and the US, the virtual chips are programmed remotely, identifying devices from afar, and providing network connections by becoming embedded into newer smartphones. The catch is that, in order to activate an eSIM, the user needs a smartphone that supports the feature, as well as a stable internet connection—two things that aren’t easily obtainable right now in Gaza.
Palestinian youth activist Ahmed El-Madhoun says he was able to stay connected to over 36,400 followers on X throughout the blackout, after receiving and successfully activating an eSIM on Oct. 28.
“I was among the first people in Gaza who were able to activate the eSIM,” he told Quartz.
At the start of the blackout, El-Madhoun, like others in Gaza, initally was able to connect to the internet via an Israeli telecom network for about half an hour before getting blocked. He used that time to post on X, asking for help to get an eSIM. His plea was picked up by El-Helbawi, who quickly provided him with a virtual chip which he was able to activate, restoring his internet connection.
After that, the #ConnectingGaza campaign prioritized healthcare workers who needed to be able to coordinate efforts on the ground to relieve those in need, as well as journalists and activists whose online presence provides an ongoing account of the devastation in Gaza.
“We have a responsibility to tell the world what is happening in Gaza,” El-Madhoun said. “People were dying quietly with no one knowing what was happening.” Unable to proactively deploy medics and other first responders, hospitals “would wait for the first ambulance to bring back the wounded during an airstrike, or for civilians carrying injured neighbors, to know where to dispatch the ambulances.” he said.
“During the blackout, journalists heard bombardments but were unable to know the locations struck,” he added. The eSIMS enabled reporters to send materials to their news agencies and share reports on social media about the airstrikes in their areas, and those posts would be reshared by others, he said.
How to upload content in a telecom blackout
Citing the Ministry of Health in Gaza, the UN reports that since the start of the war on Oct. 7, more than 16,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, about 70% of whom are women and children. With Israel blocking delivery of humanitarian aid from Oct. 8 to Oct. 21, followed by weeks of tight restrictions on what could flow into the besieged strip, Libby, an eSIM donor from England, felt the campaign was the most direct way she could support Palestinians in Gaza.
“These eSIMS are being put directly into the hands of those who need it,” she told Quartz.
The ceasefire that began on Nov. 24 allowed more aid to get through. But even with fuel shipments trickling into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing it shares with Egypt, fuel remains in short supply, affecting telecom providers. On Dec. 4, residents of Khan Younis in the south of Gaza reported a telecommunications blackout amidst heavy Israeli bombing and an expanding ground offensive. The following day, Paltel Group, which previously ran out of fuel needed to operate its generators, said all telecom services in Gaza were lost as a result to damage done to its infrastructure.
Mohammed Abu Safia, a freelance journalist and photographer, was able to bypass the telecom constraints through eSIMS he received from donors in France, Britain, Egypt, and the US via #ConnectingGaza. Initially, he tried to use Israeli SIM cards but they were blocked.
Needing 20G daily to upload content and videos online to relay to the world what is happening on the ground, Abu Safia said the eSIMs proved vital for Palestinians who became isolated from the world, and as Israel’s ground operations cut off southern Gaza from the north.
“The eSIMs helped many people communicate with their loved ones in the north. I was able to check on a doctor who is dear to me. He is the head of ER in the Indonesian Hospital in the north,” said Abu Safia, who was displaced from the north to Rafah in the south.
The doctor also had received an eSIM, allowing him to contact his family in Germany and Egypt, Abu Safia added. “We are grateful for every person who participated or sent eSIMs to as many people here in Gaza,” he said.
Getting—and staying—connected
Fromh the first complete internet blackout in Gaza on Oct. 27, sympathizers called on the Egyptian government to extend the services of its local telecommunication providers, while the hashtag #starlinkforgaza went viral as social media users called on SpaceX founder Elon Musk to activate his Starlink satellite connections in Gaza, as he had initially done in Ukraine.
As neither party stepped in, #ConnectingGaza emerged as a spontaneous collaboration of nonprofits and independent volunteers. Speak Up, an Egypt-based feminist campaign launched in 2020 to support victims of violence through free legal and psychological support, were among those who leapt to help. “Like everyone, we saw Mirna El-Helbawi’s announcement on her social media accounts about the campaign to distribute eSIMs,” said Gehad Hamdy, Speak Up’s founder. “[We] immediately contacted her and offered our support. She was very welcoming and we joined the effort the next day.”
The group then reached out to other organizations to help. They included Egypt-based Superwomen, which also supports victims of violence, and organized volunteers to assist with matching up eSIM donors with Gazans in need.
Hamdy said the campaign received gifted eSIMs from 10 providers, including Simly, Airalo, Numero, Nomad, Mogo, and Holafly. Attempts by Quartz to contact Simly and Airalo were not successful, but on Oct. 30, Simly announced on X that it had received more than $70,000 for gifted eSIMs in a 24-hour period and requested a pause in gifts so it could catch up on allocation of the initial batch.
Hamdy said SpeakUp has so far received more than 45,000 gifted eSIMs and has been able to distribute more than 35,000 to people in the Gaza strip. Receiving requests for eSIMs from Gazans, as well as eSIM QR codes from donors via the campaign’s email, the volunteers would connect the two and distribute the virtual chips accordingly. The campaign also provides support to set up the eSIMs and ensure their activation.
Volunteers are prepared to help if a user’s internet is disconnected before the activation process is complete, which happens often given the circumstances in Gaza. “We immediately send screenshots of the eSIM and setup instructions, in addition to any information that can help the person activate the eSIM once the internet is restored,” said Amro El-Shabrawi, a 24-year-old volunteer assisting in the campaign.
“Among those I helped stay connected was a young journalist. He was doing an incredible job underneath the shelling, with such high spirit. Days later, he was among those killed in yet another Israeli airstrike,” El-Shabrawi said. “It literally broke my heart.”
The nuances of stable connections
Journalist Madelene Shaqliyeh said she received eSIMs from a friend in France and a relative in the US but was unable to activate both due to her locations, first in Gaza’s north and later in Khan Younis, south of the strip, after her displacement.
“You need to be at a higher altitude. Journalists in the Nasser Hospital go to the roof to be able to upload their content. But I couldn’t get my eSIMs to work in my locations,” she said.
#ConnectingGaza volunteer El-Shabrawi said that ”[w]henever possible, we try to avoid connecting to local networks in Gaza, to avoid interruption.” Instead, “[w]e help users activate the eSIMs via networks in surrounding areas closer to the Egyptian border to ensure a stable connection until we complete the activation, and they have access to the internet at all times via the eSIM,” he explained. “With time, we now know the best way to connect an eSIM in certain areas, and we know that each provider has a stronger signal in some places compared to others.”
Even after its activation, using the virtual chip requires certain conditions. El-Madhoun, the first to receive a donated eSIMs in Gaza from the campaign, said getting a good signal required going to the rooftop of Nasser Hospital, where he was with hundreds of other Palestinians displaced from north Gaza. “Being on the rooftop is extremely dangerous and risky as Israeli drones hover nearby,” he said.
This article was published in collaboration with Egab.