we are not numbers
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Basic necessities and life-saving medicine remain scarce, but mobile phones and luxury goods that no one can afford are available.
Mobile phone products allowed into Gaza during the genocide. Photo: Khaled Al-Qershali
After more than two years of severe shortages, limited aid and essential goods were finally allowed into the Gaza Strip in October 2025 as part of the peace agreement — as well as a disproportionately large quantity of mobile phones.
Even before the genocide, there was a severe lack of medicines, especially basic types, like painkillers, that were unavailable in sufficient quantities to meet the needs.
Dr. Ahmed, 28, works as a doctor at a medical station in a refugee camp in Deir Al-Balah. Even before the active genocide, he claimed, “Many medications for several diseases were nonexistent in Gaza, and only a few alternatives, which would be less effective, were available. Augmentin, an antibiotic used in primary care for emergencies, was completely unavailable.”
Israel had not allowed medications to enter the commercial sector, so people could only depend on institutions. “By forcing institutions to choose only basic items of low-quality medicines, the Israeli occupation has created a crisis in the medical field,” Dr. Ahmed said.
The shortage extended beyond medicine. There were various types of food available in the market, but the supply was insufficient.
“Many people have been depending on canned food, which is unhealthy in the long term,” Dr. Ahmed said. Fruits, eggs, fish, chicken and meat were not allowed to enter in high quantities. To avoid people fighting over these goods, traders sold these products in one store in every neighborhood.
Yet despite these shortages, mobile phones were allowed to enter Gaza in noticeable quantities.
Medications required by the author’s grandmother. Some are hard to find, and others are exorbitantly priced. Photo: Khaled Al-Qershali
Ahmed Abd Al-Dayem, 20, has been unable to continue his education for two years because of the genocide. He was unaware that medicine had been allowed to enter the Strip, he said.
His grandmother, who suffered from chronic diseases including diabetes and high blood pressure, was forced to go without some medications. “When we could not find these medications in hospitals, we looked for them in pharmacies, but we couldn’t find them.” On the few occasions he could find them, “the prices were unimaginably high.”
When an individual was sick and had to seek treatment abroad, relatives could go along as companions.
“The Israeli occupation never wanted the people in Gaza to have their treatment in Gaza,” Abd Al-Dayem continued. “It used [the need for treatment] as an indirect way to forcibly displace Palestinians from their land.”
On Dec. 3, 2025, when Abd Al-Dayem went to the market, he saw a store selling eggs. “Around 100 to 150 men were standing in a queue wanting to buy a carton of eggs for $20.”
He also noticed that mobile phones were entering Gaza in large quantities and were being sold for double the pre-genocide prices. “Not everyone could afford to buy a new device because many families could barely afford buying food.”
Why would Israel allow the entry of smartphones when it clearly did not want Gazans to report the conditions they were enduring? Abd Al-Dayem came to the conclusion that because “the Israeli occupation does not want our message and suffering to reach the world, they could have allowed these devices to enter for other purposes.”
Ahmed Abu Watfa, 26, owned a mobile phone company before the genocide. He reopened his store, Miza Mobile, in October 2025 and imported some phones from the West Bank. “As the market had been thriving for phones, and hundreds of phones of different generations had been produced, I imported new mobile phones,” Abu Watfa said.
No reason has been given for allowing mobile phones to enter Gaza. “The borders open or close at any time,” Abu Watfa added. Before the genocide, these mobile phones would enter Gaza regularly and every trader was able to import the devices. “When they arrived, the media would be filled with news about how these devices had entered easily while medicine was still prevented,” Abu Watfa said.
During the first ceasefire, the Israelis prevented mobile phones from entering the Gaza Strip, but since October 2025 they permitted a shipment. Many families had lost their phones during the genocide and the need for phones has increased, as students need them to continue their work and education. “That was an opportunity for traders to import these devices, as people needed to buy new ones,” Abu Watfa said.
In September 2024, thousands of pager and walkie-talkie devices exploded in Lebanon and at least a dozen people were killed and more than 3,000 people were injured; many of the injured lost body parts, including hands and eyes. The pagers had been carried by health workers as well as Hezbollah cadres. ABC News Australia reported that the devices had been tampered with and Israel detonated them remotely.
Concerns emerged in Gaza following reports that recently imported smartphones exploded while being used. On November 27, 2025, OnePath Network reported on Instagram that at least two Palestinians were injured when newly permitted mobile phones detonated in their hands, coinciding with an unusual influx of devices, including Samsung Galaxy A and M series models. According to local news, the first incident involved a woman from Al-Shati refugee camp, while a second explosion was reported days later. It has not been reported that these incidents were formally investigated.
Abd Al-Dayem posited two explanations for Israel allowing these devices to reach the city: “Either to spy on us or to explode these devices while we were carrying them. By allowing these devices to enter, the Israeli occupation could listen to everything we say or even explode the device as they did in Lebanon.”
He acknowledged that Israel had been monitoring electronic devices in Gaza even before October 2023.
In November 2023, the Israeli occupation called one of Abd Al-Dayem’s relatives and told him to evacuate to the south. “When my relative told them he didn’t have the money to evacuate, the Israeli occupation told him that he had been working as a freelancer and could afford money for evacuation,” Abd Al-Dayem said.
“It is possible that the Israeli occupation allowed these devices to explode and kill more civilians, but since most people needed new electronic devices, many people ignored that,” Dr. Ahmed said.
“The electronic devices that were being sold in Gaza were imported from official phone stores and companies in the West Bank and the Palestinian interior, so there was not a clear reason behind their entry,” Abu Watfa said. “The Israeli occupation had been killing us without the need to export these new devices to us.”
Gaza residents have been forced to contend with the cruel reality imposed on them by Israel: basic necessities and life-saving medicine remain scarce, but mobile phones and luxury goods that no one can afford — smartphones, imported chocolates and sweets, soft drinks, snacks and electronic bicycles — are available. The entry of goods gives the impression that conditions have improved; traders import these goods because the occupation permits them, and they need to sell what they can to the minority that can afford them to make a profit.
In fact, daily life for most residents remains extremely difficult. (And since the launch of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, the number of smartphones imported into Gaza has dropped considerably.) For ordinary families, the struggle is daily, relentless and inescapable. Some comforts are visible, but the true cost of occupation — fear, hunger, loss — cannot be disguised. Gaza’s resilience persists, but the world must recognize the human suffering at its core.
This article is co-published with Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
