Since the Israel War – Hamas began in early October, Farid Sami Al -Zaro, 27, had little control over how and when he could communicate with his family. Zaro lives in Cairo, and his extended family lives in Gaza.
The ability to make phone calls or the Internet has been severely interrupted in Gaza since the war began, and it is still getting worse, according to Netblocks data, an organization that monitors access to the Internet. Palestinian telecommunications providers said that the Israeli attacks had harmed the lines and towers of the communications, according to the island of Al -Jazeera and Wireless.
Israel has also cut the phone and the Internet in Gaza several times in the past two weeks, according to a multiple news article.
Al -Zaro did not hear from his family for three days during the first blackout, which occurred from 27 to 29 October. He did not know whether they were alive, had food or water, or they were able to sleep, or whether his family’s house was bombed. Then he received a short phone call from one of his relatives who found a phone working in the house of one of the neighbors, and told him that they were fine and asked him to pray for them.
Then, on November 1, another day of the silence of the radio. Zaro did not know when he heard from his family after that.
He said: “I lost all hope again.”
Alzaro read on Instagram that people from all over the world were donating and offering ESIM cards to the Palestinians. Despite the name, ESIM cards are not material cards at all, but parts of programs are behaving like traditional SIM cards, allowing people to activate a new cellular plan with the phone and the Internet on their current phone. Alzaro wrote to the Egyptian writer and journalist Mirna El Helbuy, who was organizing the ESIM distribution campaign, and immediately sent him access to ESIM information for his participation with his family in Gaza. His family could not get it to work. When I told El Helbawi, I sent him to get a second information.
A full day after the second ESIM information, called the Alzaro family. I worked.
“It was the happiest moment in my life,” Zaro said in the Instagram message. “I also spoke. Also with my grandmother, from Al -Zheimer’s patient, do you know what she said to me? I want to embrace you until you sleep in my arms, I want nothing but seeing you.”
El Helbavoy said she has distributed more than 7,000 ESIMs for free since her campaign began on October 28. Within a few hours of launch, her campaign became viral. El Helbawi said that people around Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia, Mexico and other countries said Send her Esims. She now has more than 14,000, donated by individuals who wanted to help bring the delivery to the Palestinians in Gaza. Simly, an ESIMS company, also contacted and provided other thousands. The feminist organization, which has collected a dual -language guide on how to activate ESIMS.
Since the donors buy ESIMS using communications providers in their country and download it with data, they are also notified by their provider when stimulating ESIM. When Palestinians in Gaza use these ESIMS to connect to the Internet, they do this mainly through donor communication service. Many people who donated the El Helbawi campaign Activation Social media footage.
EL Helbawi barely grown since her campaign began, in a desperate attempt to distribute ESIM cards while watching it at the expense of a terrible one after what life is in the middle of the war zone.
On Saturday evening, she was trying to help get a young ESIM to work when he told her that he needed to get away a little. He said that the bomb may have hit his cousin’s house on a nearby street, and he had to go to verify whether his cousin was still alive. “I will return,” tell her.
Once again, the father, who lived outside Gaza, helped to get his wife and children, who were in Gaza, to reach a working phone. He told her that they were only able to contact each other every two to three days, and the line continued to separate. El Helbawi recounted that he needed to talk to them because if the last invitation for them was, then he needed to hear them saying goodbye.
On X, El Helbawi posted what an ESIM asked, “The only thing I want in my life now is SIM E-SIM to be able to contact my family in Gaza, even if it was the last call, let me tell them goodbye before they kill.”
“My heart crashed into cutting,” she said. “He does not want to pass the internet connection to YouTube, and not active on social media. He just wants to be invited by goodbye. He expects to kill his wife and children at any moment.”
El Helbuy described that every time you choose to sleep, you feel guilty. “There are people who are waiting for social media ready and want to reconnect with their families. [It] He kills me every minute. “
For this reason, the newly formed team was helping it: Gehad Hamdy, the founder of Speak Up, was the first to join. After that, I bring El Helbawi a friend of her, Marwan Abdelmawla, Mohamed Bibars, and DOAA GAWISH, who asked if El Helbawi needed help and then recruited 8 to 10 people. Together, they created transformations so that someone is available to distribute ESIMS 24 hours a day.
Take “the child steps together around the world”
When Hamas fighters stormed Israel on October 7 and Israel declared the war the next day, it was attached to its phone “24/7, and the news was examined. I was unable to watch the news of Israeli bombs and the forces that kill the Palestinians in Gaza. She tried to share information about attacks on her social media accounts – ELLBAWI has 763,000 followers on Instagram and 165,000 followers on X (previously Twitter). But she didn’t feel she was doing enough.
While looking for a way to help, it is hearing ESIM cards may restore phone and internet connections in Gaza. Therefore, a popular campaign to collect ESIMS and distribute it to the Palestinians began.
“[People] You should be able to communicate with hospitals and doctors; “They should be able to communicate with their loved ones and their family,” Helboy said. The unknown and uncertainty is a monster. It can eat you alive. It can leave you in many infinite possibilities of what could have happened to your family, what could have happened to your friend. It is not fair to cut basic rights and the minimum people in Gaza. “
ESIMS is a relatively new technology that was originally designed for devices such as drones, wearable tools and site followers, according to the PC magazine. They are now a common option for travelers, because adding ESIM with phone coverage and data in the countries you visit can be more expensive than paying international roaming fees on your regular plan. It supports many ESIMS phones, although a small number of phones do not do it.
El Helbawi said that most people who donate and receive ESIMS are learning about it for the first time. “[They’re] New to all people – to donors, for the people who live in Gaza, whom Esims offer, and I also have. So it was as if we were taking the steps of our child together around the world. “
Soon, the team noted that all ESIMS does not work throughout Gaza. Through experience and error, they discovered any of any country, from any country, worked in any parts of Gaza. Each member of the team works with someone to be connected. It has helped many people who then communicated the other Palestinians on the ground.
It is difficult to predict whether ESIMS will continue to work in Gaza, specifically, whether they will work during the power outages in the future, because the technical details of Israel’s efforts to deprive the Internet and the phone are not well documented.
El Helbawi temporarily stops accepting ESIMS until those donors are already given to people in need. Although she is happy with the campaign, she hopes that this effort does not need to grow more. Instead, you hope to re -establish the connection soon.
“I know that there are greater issues … in Gaza,” she said. “But their delivery is the only way in my hands to help them on Earth.”
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Photography of Brett Jordan on not
