Name: Gaza digital lifeline: Tech survivors struggling to work
Uploaded: 2025-12-19T08:43:49.511Z
Duration: 3 min 11 s
Description: With limited electricity, damaged devices, and slow internet, young Palestinians in Gaza struggle to maintain their digital world.

With limited electricity, damaged devices, and slow internet, young Palestinians in Gaza struggle to maintain their digital world.

Tel Aviv-Yafo

Two years of conflict have severely damaged Gaza's infrastructure, leaving homes, schools, and the once-vibrant tech community in ruins. Despite these hardships, a small group of young Palestinian coders, freelancers, and repair technicians continue to find ways to work online, often relying on damaged equipment and unstable electricity.

With new electronics blocked from entering Gaza and power costs soaring, these tech workers adapt by coding offline, using solar power, and waiting for rare moments of connectivity to send their work to clients worldwide. Their digital skills have become crucial for survival and resilience, as they strive to maintain Gaza's digital presence against overwhelming odds.

Gaza digital lifeline: Tech survivors struggling to work

Two years of war have devastated Gaza homes, schools, and infrastructure. But even under these conditions, a small group of young Palestinians is fighting to keep the Strip digitally alive. Coders, fixers, and freelancers who have once formed Gaza's growing tech scene are now struggling to work in a world with almost no electricity, limited internet, and destroyed equipment. For many, online work has become their only way of getting income. But even this is now hanging by a thread. Trying to not think of it as an excuse. Whatever it is, the cuttage or the outage of the internet and electricity, for as long as how it lasted, we just always look for another way to get connected. Always find another way to connect our laptops and connect to the internet and try to keep going. So this is what actually gave us purpose, because if we didn't do this, we would just die surviving and not doing anything. We would die internally if we weren't dead physically already. Before the war, Gaza had a vibrant tech community, including boot camps, innovation hubs, and hundreds of remote freelancers. Much of that ecosystem has now been reduced to rubble. But some of its founders are still trying to hold it together. It was a building that had more than 12 programmers in it before the 7th of October. I was the head of this team. The team was very active and we had a lot of contacts with companies outside of Gaza. People are still trying to work, even if they are coding from tents or shelters. With the new electronics blocked from entering Gaza for months, repair technicians have become essential. They are the lifeline for freelancers whose work depends on devices that have survived airstrikes, dust, and displacement. The main challenge is electricity. Today, it's not available all the time, and if it is, it's unstable and there will be lots of cuts. Prices are also high. One kilowatt is $12, and this is a very high price compared to before the war, which was $1.50 for about 10 kilowatts. The second challenge is that there are no spare parts. We're creating an alternative from the equipment that comes out of the basement, which is broken, and we have no space to repair it. Against all odds, Gaza youth continue to adapt, do work offline, code in notebooks, store solar power whenever the sun is out, and wait for rare moments of connectivity to send their work to clients around the world. In a war that has taken nearly everything, digital skills have become a form of survival and resilience. Their future is uncertain, but their determination remains. Gaza Tech survivors continue to rebuild their tech world one device, one code, and one connection at a time. Hani Mahmoud, Al Jazeera, from Gaza City, Palestine.

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