VirtualGaza

Virtual Gaza is a website where ordinary Palestinians under siege can describe their experiences in their own words, and where the destruction can be documented by those experiencing it directly. It was created as a response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in January 2009.

How might communities use it?
It can be used by other communities to document crises, tell stories, and share experiences with other contributors and the world. It is designed to aggregate stories by neighborhood, using local geography as a guide.

Code is available on request.

We intend to expand to allow entry by SMS text message for more direct and immediate reporting. Additional data layers documenting the destruction and rebuilding of the Gaza Strip will be added over the summer after field research.

At what stage of development is it?
We currently have thirty authors (residents of Gaza, as well as international activists on the ground) contributing diary entries, photographs, and video testimony. It has been developed in collaboration with the Alliance for Justice in the Middle East at Harvard University.