eSIMs of Solidarity: Communication Blackouts and Human Resilience
Note: this article is a draft, submitted in Jan 2024 for a university assignment
The 2011 Egyptian Revolution has been widely termed the ‘Facebook Revolution’; a nod to the wide-scale use of communication technologies — specifically social media — to mobilise and organise protestors.
In fact, it is to a Facebook page that the onset of the revolution can be traced; a page commemorating an Egyptian man: Khaled Said, a victim of police brutality. The page gained 500,000 members, and later, it was used to promote a protest taking place on January 25th, National Police Day. 100,000 online-sign ups were logged on that page for the what would become the first day of the Egyptian Revolution, bringing an end to the three decade long rule of President Hosni Mubarak.
When the Egyptian regime belatedly realised how dangerous social networks could be to its survival, the first thing it did was block access to Twitter. Two days later -on January 28th- it blocked all Internet access in the country for a period of five days, as well as mobile telephone communications for one day.
An analysis by Renesys, which provides real-time monitoring of internet access, found “the virtually simultaneous withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks in the internet’s global routing table. Approximately 3,500 individual BGP [Border Gateway Protocol] routes were withdrawn, leaving no valid paths by which the rest of the world could continue to exchange internet traffic with Egypt’s service providers. Virtually all of Egypt’s internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide.”
On that day, I remember my mother pacing, trying to call the British Embassy over and over again, to no avail. I remember my father with our neighbors, creating a timetable to stand watch outside; the agreement that cars would be left unlocked so their horns could be used as a siren in the event of an emergency. But mostly, I remember sitting in front of the television, with Al-Jazeera offering the only insight into what was befalling the country we had called home for nearly half a decade. In that moment, information was power, and we had never felt so powerless.
The creation of the Internet blackout
An internet blackout is defined as the “intentional disruption of internet or electronic communications, rendering them inaccessible or effectively unusable … often to exert control over the flow of information.”
In Egypt, the severing of more than 20 million people’s connection to the internet was nothing short of unprecedented. While countries such as China and Iran have notoriously placed limitations on internet usage, particularly during periods of unrest, this was the first time that all online communication had been halted: 88% of all Egyptian internet access was successfully shut down.
Jim Cowie, the chief technology officer of Renesys, remarked: “With the scope of their shutdown and the size of their online population, it is an unprecedented event.”
“The legacy of the Egyptian Internet blackout ushered in the modern era of government-directed suppression of Internet communication.”
As Dioug Madory reiterates above, this blackout set a dangerous precedent. As the Arab Spring protests spread, the trend of government-directed Internet blackouts continued in Syria, Libya, and Bahrain.
In fact, targeting communications networks -not just the internet- has become a go-to tool for governments, military juntas, third-party actors and warring parties to stifle dissent and restrict human rights. Reporters Without Borders states that restrictions on access to communication technologies are now “widely used as censorship tools to gag dissent and prevent coverage of unrest.”
In 2023, Access Now has already documented more than 80 incidents of shutdowns in at least 21 countries, including the second year of the internet blackout in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
And we need only to look at the news to see the truth in this: during Russia’s war in Ukraine, its forces have decimated communications networks, tried to take over the internet, and set up new mobile companies to control information flows. When Hamas first attacked Israel on October 7, it used drones to bomb communications equipment at surveillance posts along the borders of the Gaza Strip.
Gaza’s Internet Shutdown: A Timeline
Note: as the conflict is ongoing, this timeline is preliminary
At the time of writing (17th Jan 2024), telecommunication services in Gaza have been shut down since 12 January. This is the seventh time that communications have been shut down since October 7th, and by far the longest — the second longest was in December and lasted approximately three days.
October 7
A WIRED review of internet analysis data, social media posts, and Palestinian internet and telecom company statements shows how connectivity in the Gaza Strip drastically plummeted after October 7 after Israel responded to the Hamas attack.
The nonprofit internet infrastructure organization Ripe Network Coordination Center, says based on an analysis of internet routing data it collects that 11 Palestinian networks began to experience disruption after October 7.
October 10
Amid Israel’s intense bombing of Gaza, physical systems powering the internet had been destroyed. On October 10, the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which oversees emergency responses, said air strikes “targeted several telecommunication installations” and had destroyed two of the three main lines of communications going into Gaza.
October 19
Across Paltel’s network on October 19, according to an update shared by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 83 percent of fixed line users had been disconnected, with 53 percent of sites providing fixed line connections also being offline. Half of the company’s fiber optic internet lines in Gaza weren’t operational.
October 23
Eight of the 11 remaining networks were no longer visible to the global internet as of October 23.
October 27
On the evening of Friday the 27th, a complete communication shut-down occured in Gaza. 15 ISPs (Internet Service Providers) faced near-complete outages, with landline, cellular, and internet connections all inaccessible.
“We regret to announce a complete interruption of all communications and internet services within the Gaza Strip”
The above statement was posted by Paltel on its Facebook page. The company claimed that bombing had “caused the destruction of all remaining international routes.”
October 29
After a 34 hour shutdown, connectivity restarted spontaneously on Sunday around 4 a.m, said the chief executive of Paltel. The company had made no repairs and had no understanding of how or why service had partly returned.
Note that service remains limited after prior attacks on telecommunication infrastructure.
November 1
Paltel reported a “complete disruption” of communications and internet services in Gaza on Wednesday morning.
November 5
Internet and communications services have been cut off in Gaza for the third time since October 7th.
[This will be updated ]
Circumventing Blackouts
As previously stated, prior to the complete blackout of communication, the Egyptian government attempted to block Twitter. This strategy was wholly ineffective: users were able to access proxy servers within minutes, and to use other social media platforms to share how to circumvent this shutdown.
In Gaza, the communications blackout is being circumvented through the use of embedded SIM cards: while Palestinian SIM cards were disconnected from placing phone calls or accessing the Internet, Gazans with Israeli SIM cards found they were still able to use their phones if they could get close enough to an Israeli cellular tower.
This discovery was a turning point, and soon a mass social media initiative resulted in thousands of volunteers across the world purchasing eSIMs that were configured to work either in Israel, Egypt, or across the whole Middle East, and sending their digital receipts -in the form of a QR code- to Gazans on the ground. In this way, individual connections were restored.
In less than 24 hours, hundreds of eSIMS were distributed across Gaza. The Egyptian pioneer behind this intiative: Mirna El Helbawi is now partnering with Simly, an eSIM provider, to try to connect thousands more Palestinians in Gaza to cellular service and the internet.
Was It Ever About Technology?
When asked about the role of the Egyptian government in trying to block communication technologies, organizer Waleed Rasheed, said:
“I would like to thank Mubarak so much…. he disconnected mobile phones on Jan. 27. More people came down to the streets on the 28th of January because he disconnected.”
And I can testify to this: the hours my parents spent with our neighbours -many of whom have remained dear friends more than a decade later- were nothing short of invaluable.
The Egyptian internet blackout lasted five days, with mobile communications down for one, and meanwhile, protests continued, intensifying both in number and in sheer resistance, until February 11th, when President Hosni Mubarak stepped down. It was from these neighbours that we received news of Mubarak’s resignation, and it was with them that we celebrated.
As demonstrated, the disruption of a population’s access to the internet and other forms of communication technologies in times of conflict or unrest is becoming increasingly popular -and in a digital age- increasingly effective. But as Middle Eastern scholars critiqued the narrative of the Arab Spring as social media revolutions, heralding instead the public desire for change as the determining factor, with technology placed merely as a facilitator, so must we see communication shutdowns.
And while the situation in Gaza today cannot be compared to that of Egypt in 2011, the fact remains: no matter what actor controls access to communication technologies, a population under duress will find a way to resist, be that by taking to the streets, creating their own systems of communications, or finding new and innovative ways to circumvent their oppressors.
The provision of more than 20,000 of eSIMs to the people of Gaza has demonstrated this a thousand times over — the collective effort by volunteers across the globe and on the ground to ensure that people in Gaza can stay connected to the outside world: to keep aid and medical organisations connected with their staff, to sustain access to emergency services, and crucially, to convey messages to the outside world. The result of this can be seen in the hundreds of thousands of protestors globally calling for a ceasefire, and is a testament to sheer human resilience in the face of struggle.
Of the eSIMs I personally donated, two have been activated, and that small action of solidarity: of knowing that I have facilitated access to communication to one person in Gaza, is invaluable. The solidarity that that facilitates, the hope it inspires. It was never about the technology itself, but human resistance in the face of odds that seem overpowering.
For more information on how to donate an eSIM, see the resources below:
- Website: https://gazaesims.com/
- Twitter: @Connectinghu_, @Mirna_elhelbawi
- Video guide:
