After bombs, blackouts and bank restrictions, Gaza’s digital workers are still coding

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — As Israeli drones buzz overhead and ambulance sirens wail in the distance, Tarik Zaeem stays hunched over his laptop, working through lines of code for a Saudi valet parking app, debugging its barcode reader.

On weekdays he walks through the bombed-out streets of Gaza City to a coworking space where freelancers charge devices and access stable internet. Remote work provides desperately needed income and a form of escape from the impoverished and largely destroyed Gaza Strip.

“When I work, I forget everything and focus on the coding. I stop thinking about my family’s basic needs,” the 44-year-old programmer said of his wife and three children, who fled to Egypt early in the war. “I stop thinking about airstrikes or searching for drinking water. When I’m on my laptop, I shut everything else out.”

Zaeem is part of a community of freelancers coding, designing and programming for clients abroad. Platforms connecting them to clients — including Freelancer.com, Upwork and Mostaql — each have thousands of Palestinians from Gaza registered.

Like others in Gaza, they have at times struggled to find food, water and shelter, lost friends and relatives, and seen their homes and neighborhoods leveled by Israeli airstrikes. Many stopped working, but others kept going, designing logos for pizza parlors in Canada, building booking apps for Palestinian barber shops and creating websites for businesses in Kuwait and Turkey.

After struggling through two years of full-scale war, their work is growing steadier, even as broader recovery and reconstruction efforts remain at a standstill seven months since a shaky ceasefire took hold in October.

The digital sector grew up under Israel’s blockade

Digital freelancing became popular more than a decade ago in Gaza. Traditional sectors shrank after Hamas seized control of the strip in 2007, as Israel’s intensified blockade devastated agriculture, manufacturing and other industries.

High unemployment and a rise in connectivity — more than nine out of 10 households in Gaza had internet before the war — pushed thousands of digitally skilled college graduates to seek income abroad.

Foreign donors and NGOs took notice, investing in hackathons, incubators and coding academies. The United Nations Development Program said in 2018 that “freelancing and online jobs are considered to be among the best temporary solutions to the unemployment problem.”

Before the war, U.S.-based Mercy Corps’ Gaza Sky Geeks ran bustling coworking spaces with glass walls and a graffiti mural bearing the word “entrepreneur” in Arabic. Rand Safi, its senior program manager, said interest skyrocketed once it became clear that remote workers from Gaza could compete in the global marketplace.

Most of that vanished during the war sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, in which Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 251. Israel’s retaliatory offensive killed over 72,700 people, according to local officials, and displaced most of Gaza’s population of 2 million — often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands sought shelter in squalid tent camps, and electricity and internet outages were widespread.

Gaza Sky Geeks said two of its three locations were destroyed in airstrikes. Entrepreneurs, participants and instructors have been killed or lost contact. Today, it is one of the groups working to rekindle the sector, supporting operations at five independent coworking spaces where digital freelancers can return.

“They want the vibes, and I think they want a piece of their past,” Safi said. “There is a sense among people of not wanting to be dependent on humanitarian aid. They want an income.”

Deadlines hinge on stable power and connectivity

More than 75% of Gaza’s telecommunications infrastructure was damaged during the war, and power outages often made it difficult to fulfill contracts.

“When we first started, the main problem was electricity and internet access. Now that’s less of an issue because workspaces have opened across Gaza,” software engineer Sharif Naim said.

During the war, Naim founded Taqat Gaza, a coworking space powered by solar generators, giving remote workers an opportunity to work in three-hour shifts. Today, it caters to more than 500 freelancers, offering a full day of internet access and networking opportunities that Naim said were seen as equally useful.

“The focus (today) is creating a proper work environment, training and helping freelancers rebuild skills lost during the war so they can compete in the global market again,” he said.

Part of that has been aimed toward women, many of whom became breadwinners or needed to seek additional income amid the war.

Reem Alkhateeb, a mother and graphic designer, said she tries to find time to work online while managing the daily burdens of survival, including waiting in line for food and water. Prices have soared and her husband lost his job, turning her freelancing from supplemental income into the family’s financial lifeline.

“Our dreams are no longer about luxury or big ambitions. We dream about the simplest things that should already be basic human rights: having electricity, having internet access, being able to live and work normally,” she said.

Payment poses challenges

With banks often inaccessible in Gaza and platforms like PayPal unavailable to people with Palestinian addresses, freelancers have had to find alternative ways to get paid. Some route payments through relatives abroad who can receive transfers on their behalf, while others rely on cash brokers who accept electronic transfers for steep fees.

Some initiatives have stepped in to help freelancers navigate the maze of payment challenges. After her husband and daughter were killed in 2024, Salsabil Bardawi founded “Gaza Talents” as a platform to connect Gaza freelancers to international clients and help them build careers. It has since facilitated more than $600,000 in income for workers, partnering with the Bank of Palestine and the digital wallet “PalPay.”

“A lot of people can work, all they need is a laptop, internet, electricity and clients,” she said.

___ Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank.