An 18-Year-Old Palestinian Girl and Her Phone in Gaza's War
Maram Humaid
An 18-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza gives her phone to her mother every night, a ritual that underscores how the family relies on the device as a lifeline. Amid the war, the phone is both a connection to the world and a source of parental concern.
Gaza City - Every night around 11 p.m., in a small apartment that has miraculously survived waves of Israeli airstrikes sweeping through northern Gaza, Eman Lulu gets out of bed.
The living room is plunged in darkness, lit only by the faint glow of a few solar-powered bulbs her father, Hussam, 58, installed in the early months of the war — before solar panels became so scarce they were nearly impossible to find.
Next to the central battery unit on the balcony, where the family charges all their devices, Eman unplugs her phone. Charging from a wall outlet has become a luxury in Gaza; like thousands of other families, the Lulus depend on the electricity they generate themselves.
Eman, 18, still wearing the white cotton shirt and denim skirt she had on all day, steps across the living room's black-flecked marble floor, a worn brown rug softening the center, and walks into her mother Beirut's room. She places the phone in her mother's hands, wishes her goodnight, and returns to bed.
Beirut, 43, sets the phone by her pillow, switches it to silent, and minutes later, the family powers down the battery for the night. The apartment falls into near-total darkness. Messages keep arriving, comments pile up under Eman's latest video — all waiting until morning. For a few hours before dawn, one of the world's most watched windows into Gaza goes dark.
On its own, this ritual sounds utterly mundane. A mother taking her teenage daughter's phone before bedtime. Around the world, families negotiate such rules every night, with varying success. Governments are joining the debate. Australia has banned children under 16 from holding accounts on major social media platforms, while the UK has announced a similar ban and additional restrictions targeting older teens. In the US and Europe, lawmakers continue to argue over where childhood ends and where algorithms should begin.
For years, Beirut found herself on the side of those advocating for such restrictions.
“They are absolutely right,” Beirut said. “I would advise any mother with young children — even if they are 18, 16... you still need to keep an eye on everything.”
“I was totally against, totally against sharing my daughter's pictures on Facebook, period.”
The dangers, as she understood them, lay right inside the phone. “All these things I didn't know... hearing so many stories about blackmail, someone provoking a girl through photos, people talking about her. Even adults are affected... let alone teenagers, who are younger?”
