A new report has found that Palestinians face “systemic exclusion” when accessing global digital platforms, including payment services, e-commerce, and remote work platforms.
7amleh, The Arab Centre for the Advancement of Social Media, found that Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and inside the occupied territories face “structural barriers” that restrict their participation in the digital economy.
These barriers exist due to the intersection of global tech companies’ policies and Israeli control over IT infrastructure. This limits Palestinian access to essential economic tools.
Palestinians left with costly alternatives
One of the most significant barriers that Palestinians face is access to digital payment services. Global platforms such as PayPal and Payoneer exclude Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. Importantly, though, illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank can still access these services.
Similarly, other global financial tech providers, such as Revolut, Stripe, Payoneer, and Wise, also exclude or severely limit Palestinian users. Meanwhile, Israeli citizens, including Palestinian citizens of Israel generally have access to and can use these services.
This inequality persists despite Palestinian banks meeting international compliance standards and despite the local operation of Visa, MasterCard, and Apple Pay within the Palestinian banking system.
This means that most Palestinians cannot receive or make payments, which means using costly, insecure, and unstable alternatives.
Additionally, there are huge connectivity disparities.
The report also found:
Israel operates advanced 4G/5G networks, while Palestinians in the West Bank only gained 3G access in 2018, and Gaza remains largely limited to 2G. Israeli networks cover the same territory with high-speed service, forcing many West Bank residents to rely on illegal Israeli SIM cards. In Gaza, the blockade and repeated shutdowns further restrict online work and e-commerce participation. Within Israel, many Palestinian towns also suffer from chronic underinvestment in broadband and mobile infrastructure, resulting in systematically inferior connectivity compared to neighbouring Jewish cities.
Investigations also found that Amazon offers free shipping to illegal Israeli settlements. Meanwhile, it charges Palestinians substantial fees or no delivery at all, unless they select Israel, including Jerusalem, as their country.
These barriers are compounded by shipping delays, address recognition issues, and customs restrictions.
Moreover, Palestinian sellers are effectively excluded from the global marketplace due to being blocked from payment services such as PayPal and Stripe. This limits access to sites such as Etsy, Alibaba, Instagram, Facebook shops, and Airbnb.
Similarly, Palestinians are blocked from eBay, whilst Israelis can buy and sell normally.
Online freelancing
In theory, Palestinians can access online freelancing platforms such as Upwork, Freelancer, Toptal, and Fiverr (which is an Israeli company). In practice, Palestinians can create profiles and bid for work on many of these sites. The UN estimates that at least 12,000 workers in Gaza, and many more in the West Bank, have used online freelance work as an income source in recent years.
However, earning income through these platforms is significantly more challenging for Palestinians than for their counterparts elsewhere.
The report stated:
Most freelancing sites rely on digital payout methods that Palestinians cannot fully access, such as PayPal withdrawals or direct deposits. Upwork, for instance, deducts its commission, but Palestinian freelancers often lose another 20–30% of their earnings to currency-exchange vendors who facilitate payments to them. In Gaza, where banking restrictions are tighter, freelancers frequently must receive their Upwork or Fiverr earnings through third-party services or via friends’ accounts abroad, incurring high fees.
It adds:
Palestinians use a range of workarounds, including Western Union, relatives’ accounts and addresses, cryptocurrency, foreign company registration, cash-on-delivery systems, and Israeli SIM cards. Gaza’s tech hubs offer solar-powered facilities to mitigate outages. These strategies demonstrate resilience but are expensive, insecure, and available only to a limited segment of the population.
Systemic exclusion
These practices are not just technical or procedural obstacles. They are part of a wider system of digital and economic exclusion that directly restricts Palestinians’ ability to participate in the global economy.
From carpet-bombing entire cities, ethnic cleansing and mass murder, to now excluding them from digital service, the terrorist regime is completely restricting Palestinians’ agency.
Big tech is backing up Israel’s system of apartheid with a digital apartheid, and let’s make no mistakes – this is intentional.
Featured image via Barold
By HG
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