Digital Infrastructural Resistance: Working Around Severe Telecommunication Disruptions in Gaza

Despite experiencing extensive losses in telecommunication infrastructure since October 2023, Gazans have managed to communicate with the outside world. How have they accomplished this? Through semi-structured interviews with 18 Gazan residents, this study examines how Gazans have perceived various interruptions and losses of electronic communication, how they responded and worked around communication limits, and why they persisted in communicating outside of Gaza. Our findings confirm previous results about communication under state-imposed telecom shutdowns, and also contribute new knowledge given Gaza’s distinctive political and technological dynamic. We find that restrictions drove participants – who felt compelled to maintain contact – to perpetual technical improvisation, often toward pre-digital tools, varying by geography, available technology, and electrical power. Creative, subaltern networks such as Bluetooth meshes and street internet disrupted severe repression. Our participants discussed such activities as a response to the larger context of violence, and we conceptualize their efforts as "digital infrastructural resistance."