When your internet cuts, it is a frustrating but temporary inconvenience. But for Gazans, partial-to-complete digital blackouts have become part and parcel of their everyday lives for the last two years.
Israel’s ongoing blockade of Gaza’s phone and internet services has become a type of modern psychological warfare, isolating Palestinians from the rest of the world.
Under these circumstances, Palestinians find themselves in a deadly digital void, unable to reach loved ones, unaware of what is happening outside of their immediate vicinity; it is a form of collective imprisonment that only heightens their fear and anxiety.
Information and disinformation
Israel’s constant interruptions to Gaza’s telecommunications system not only result in an absence of technology but also cause the absence of vital information.
Without the ability to make phone calls or send instant messages, no one has a clue where airstrikes are taking place. This means Palestinians are unable to identify which areas they need to evacuate from or refrain from travelling to. Families are unable to check on relatives living in other areas of Gaza, and instead rumours spread from mouth-to-mouth, resulting in disinformation and more panic.
"My son was on the other side of the city. We heard successive explosions, and I tried to call him, but the call just kept ringing out. Without the internet, I had no other way to reach him. I sat all night looking up at the sky and crying. I had no idea if he was dead or alive," Eman Jneina, a mother in her fifties, told The New Arab.
Rose El-Najjar, a Gazan woman in her twenties, shares how she wanted to reassure her friend who lives abroad that she was still alive.
"I knew she was out there crying, not knowing anything about us. I couldn’t even send her a simple message that I’m fine,” Rose told The New Arab.
As well as families being unable to check on loved ones, digital blackouts disrupt the coordination of emergency services and rescue teams in rescuing and treating those hit by Israeli airstrikes.
"Patients were arriving at the hospital by the dozens," nurse Yasmine Jamal tells The New Arab. "We had no idea where the airstrikes were happening or what the safest routes were for transporting more patients. Our ambulance crews were unable to coordinate with us. Every minute under a communications blackout costs a patient their life."
Loss of self-expression and sense of identity
For young Palestinians, being unable to access social media erodes self-expression. While the rest of the world speaks of 'digital detoxes' and the negative impacts social media and instant messaging apps have on their mental health, the absence of these apps has the opposite effect on Palestinians.
For many Palestinians, internet blackouts mean they are unable to access the only tool they have to upload photos or video footage, document their experiences and share their testimonies, and this leads to a loss of sense of self. They feel that their suffering is trapped within the physical confines of the place they are in, and their voices are erased.
"What hurt me most wasn’t the airstrikes; it was the moment I realised I don’t exist to the rest of the world," university student Moheeb Hamdouna tells The New Arab. "I can’t post a photo; I can’t write a word online. It feels like I have been erased from the world map."
It is not only the youth who are affected; Gaza’s elderly feel it too. Seventy-year-old Ibrahim Salha says, "I’ve lived through all the wars, but never have I felt as helpless as I do this time. In the past, we used to hear news on the radio or receive news from other people. Now we don’t know anything. I feel like a stranger in my own city."
Digital blackouts as a tool of psychological warfare
In the world of psychology, enforced isolation is described as an environment that generates feelings of fear, loss of time, and amplifies pessimistic thoughts. Gaza’s ongoing digital blackout is a post-modern form of this experience.
Palestinians feel that the hours are long without any time markers except for the sound of explosions; they feel that the rest of the world continues to exist and move on while they are trapped in a closed void — the collective isolation results in chronic anxiety or emotional numbness.
Psychiatrist Dr Safaa Zaghbar from Gaza told The New Arab, “During war, digital silence is a double-edged sword. Sometimes it reduces the amount of stress and anxiety caused by constant incoming catastrophic news and enables people to focus on their everyday lives. However, it can generate feelings of isolation, which can cause people to feel detached from events or mentally incapable of communicating with loved ones."
Even children are impacted. Ten-year-old Mahdi El-Turk says, "When I heard the explosions, I wanted to send my friend a message saying, 'I feel scared,' but the internet wasn’t working. I cried a lot. I felt alone."
Palestinian resistance against the digital blackout
Despite the harsh reality of digital silence, Gazans have found ways to fill the void. Neighbours relay news from house to house; people carry written letters and messages by hand, and families meet and sit together to share news around candlelight.
Palestinians have been trying to fill their time with daily rituals such as reading the Quran, telling each other stories, sharing prayers and making up games for the children. These small details are an act of self-preservation, creating a psychological safety ne,t preventing their mental health from collapsing.
During the short hours in which the internet and phone services are restored, phone screens are filled with notifications of missed calls and new messages from loved ones and for a brief period of time, their hearts find some peace. However, the experience has a lasting impact on Palestinians’ mental health and wellbeing.
In Gaza, digital disconnection is a form of Israeli warfare that deepens fear and isolation.
However, it has also shown Palestinians' remarkable ability to adapt. It has taught people that communication is more than what happens over a smartphone; it is also in the eyes that meet, the voices that rise above the destruction and the stories that are told to keep memories alive.
Haya Ahmed is a doctor and freelance writer from Gaza