we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
‘Are you alive?’ The repeated, anxious messages from family and friends abroad pile up during internet shutdowns.
Internet shutdowns are meant to isolate us, stop us from learning, and hide war crimes. Photo by the writer
After 12 months of displacement across various areas in Khan Younis—particularly in the Al-Mawasi camps—I was displaced yet again, for the tenth time, due to new evacuation orders for Khan Younis. My family ended up sharing an unfinished house with another family near a camp in Deir Al-Balah.
My laptop is broken due to the multiple displacement ordeals it has been through, so I mainly depend on using my father’s. I wait until he comes home in the afternoon to be able to use it. While waiting, I prepare my notebook and papers so I can be ready to start studying once he arrives after a hectic day at work. My father goes for a break but the laptop doesn’t.
One such day, when I finally opened the laptop, my plan was to watch the tenth lecture in my Introduction to Literary Criticism course. Its title was “The Era of Romanticism.” I had read about the Romantic period before, and it fascinated me. I’ve always been drawn to its themes: the innocence of childhood, the deep connection with nature, and the joy found in simplicity—like sipping a small cup of coffee while watching the sunset. The ideals of the Romantic era reflect my dream life: to live in peace, surrounded by the sound of sea waves, the calm of trees.
Finals were just two weeks away, and I had assignments to submit, courses to catch up on, and lectures to follow, but instead of the lecture loading, there was no connection. I tried to restart the laptop, get out of the network, and sign in again, but all in vain. The connection was gone and so were my plans!
For days and days, I kept my eyes fixed on the Wi-Fi router, hoping to see the two green lights that would mean the connection was back. But it didn’t come back. As a result, I had no choice but to drop out of the course. It wasn’t just a minor inconvenience, it ruined my whole schedule.
I’m also enrolled in a translation course with ArabLit, a magazine that publishes Arabic literature in translation. The day the internet went out, there was a special session I was really excited about—a practical workshop with the award-winning translator and scholar from the American University in Cairo, Adam Talib, where we’d translate a piece together and receive direct feedback.
Just minutes before the session, my friend Batool, who lives in the north, called me. “Hi Duha, are you able to connect?” she asked. I told her I couldn’t. She replied, “As soon as I reached the Wi-Fi hub, they announced that the internet is completely cut across all of Gaza. I tried going to another hub, then to a café, but everywhere I went, I was told the same thing—there’s no connection.”
The disconnection wasn’t just technical; it was emotional, academic, and inhumane. I felt horrible. I was already behind on my lectures and this made everything even worse. I felt overwhelmed. Then I took a deep breath and reminded myself: I have zero control over this.
I went to spread the news amongst my family members and warned them not to shoot the messenger. The reactions differed from one to another.
Mama gasped and asked whether I was sure or not, because that meant she couldn’t contact my aunt, her only sister, who’s in the UAE, or follow the news, which is something she’s addicted to. She knew my aunt would panic if she didn’t hear from us. Usually, my aunt will keep calling us over and over. If no one answers, she starts crying and wailing, fearing the worst. She prays for us nonstop. My cousins abroad are the same. They panic when they don’t hear from us. They follow Gaza accounts for updates. They search for our faces in the crowds of displaced people shown in blurry videos. Anyone with family or friends in Gaza has learned to fear the quiet.
My younger brother kept trying to restart the router. My sister, Raghad’s phone accepts eSIMs, so we decided to try to connect that way. But the problem with eSIMs is they often don’t work. You need to be on a high roof in order to activate them.
We left the camp and looked for a car, a donkey cart, a bus, any possible vehicle, but found nothing. There’s no fuel in the city. We walked for an hour through the heat to reach my father’s friend, who had access to a hotspot.
Evacuation maps are usually shared on Facebook and Telegram, but these platforms need a strong internet connection. So, if the connection is gone, how are people supposed to know when they’re suddenly in a dangerous zone?
Some families have unknowingly walked into areas being bombed—simply because they didn’t receive the latest warnings. Others stay put, unsure if the place they’re in has become a target. Disconnection is not just dangerous; it’s deadly.
There’s a huge shortage of cash in Gaza, so we rely on bank transfers for even the most basic things. But bank transfers need the internet. So when the connection is cut, we can’t buy food, medicine, or anything at all.
It felt like they were controlling every part of our lives—even what we eat (or don’t eat). I felt helpless.
There was literally nothing to eat at home, so we decided to go to the market. We took my sister with us because of her eSIM, hoping she could help us connect. We managed to find just two kilos of lentils and one kilo of tomatoes, but when we tried to use the eSIM to pay, it didn’t work.
In the end, we had to return home with nothing.
Since there was no internet connection, I found it an ideal chance to spend some time getting to know the family we are staying with. We sat on the stairs, in the dark, and started telling our stories—real stories of displacement, hunger, loss, and sometimes survival. They told us how they were trapped in their house by the tanks in Al-Qarara neighborhood for 14 days, and how their father got killed from a drone’s rocket while he was walking in the street.
That blackout took away our ability to connect with the world, but it can never deprive us of real connection. During the blackout, I read a book called “Tales of a Traveler” by the Egyptian thinker and writer Mustafa Mahmoud. In it, he talked about his voyages to Germany, London, Paris, Beirut, and Tripoli. He reflects on how traveling shaped his character and personality. His words touched me deeply—especially because I was reading about freedom while being imprisoned in Gaza, having never in my life been outside of Gaza due to the more than 17-year blockade.
When the signal finally returned after 10 days of a total outage, we heard cheers erupting across the camp. People were shouting and clapping with joy. It was as if we had been thrown a lifeline. And Mama immediately made a video call to my aunt, telling her we were safe, telling her how much she missed seeing her.
My friends who are abroad flooded me with messages. They had been worried and constantly sending messages like “Are you alive?” My friend Zehra, who’s a Harvard graduate, generously bought me two eSIMs and sent them via email so that if another shutdown happened later, I’d still be connected.
During the war, I contribute to multiple newspapers and speak with journalists. I have shared testimonies about sleep deprivation, famine with Italian television, and displacement. In these moments, I feel heard. I feel seen.
But now, they want to cut even that small thread, the last tie between us and the outside world.
When Gaza is offline, we are not just cut off—we are silenced. No videos. No photos. No messages. Journalists can’t report. Testimonies vanish. War crimes go undocumented.
And while we’re silenced, others speak for us. They bury the truth under propaganda.
Internet access is not a luxury. In times of war, it is a fundamental link. Cutting it is not a technical glitch, it is a deliberate tactic. It isolates us.
This isn’t the first time they’ve cut us off from the world. They’ve done it before, on purpose, to cover up what they’re doing.
For many of us, social media is a lifeline. It’s how we speak. How we show we’re still alive. How we stay informed. We are in 2025. What does it mean to disconnect an entire population from the world? Where are the Wi-Fi companies? Where is Starlink? Why hasn’t the world stepped in?
Our lives have been paused—but that doesn’t mean we should be left in ignorance.
We are still here. Still learning, still reading, still calling out for connection—even when every signal disappears. We will not be silenced.
