Digital Occupation: Gaza's High-Tech Enclosure

Abstract

In disengaging from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel did not end the occupation but technologized it through purportedly “frictionless” hightechnology mechanisms. The telecommunications sector was turned over to the Palestinian Authority under Oslo II and subcontracted to Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL), furthering a neoliberal economic agenda that privately “enclosed” digital space. Coming on top of Israel's ongoing limitations on Palestinian land-lines, cellular, and Internet infrastructures, the result is a “digital occupation” of Gaza characterized by increasing privatization, surveillance, and control. While deepening Palestinian economic reliance on Israel and making Palestinian high-tech firms into dependent agents, digital occupation also enhances Israel's territorial containment of the Strip.

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