On February 12, a radio signal from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza cut through airwaves, breaking almost two years of local radio silence. “Here is Gaza—Hona Ghazza,” the announcer declared, marking the first restored local FM broadcast since the destruction of Gaza’s transmission towers forced twenty-three local radio stations off the air.
During the war, the local radio frequencies that once carried morning programs, emergency alerts, public declarations, discussions, and the steady rhythm of daily news vanished. Because the Israeli military didn’t differentiate between military and civilian signals, since radio frequencies can be used by militant groups as well as other broadcasters, the entire communications grid in Gaza became a target for Israeli bombardment. Transmission masts, rooftop antennas, and technical hubs were struck in a campaign aimed at severing militant coordination and disrupting their ability to communicate during relocations, operations, or hostage negotiations. In the process, the waves on which Palestinians in Gaza communicated were destroyed.
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, at least eleven of the territory’s twenty-three radio stations were partially or completely destroyed by Israeli strikes, and all twenty-three were forced off the air. The office added that sixteen television headquarters, twelve print institutions, and more than twenty digital outlets were also damaged. Ongoing restrictions on the entry of broadcasting equipment continue to delay recovery. Yet, 143 media organizations still operate with local staff and improvised tools.
Radio broadcasting typically begins in a studio, where a presenter’s voice, music, or recorded segments are mixed into a single audio feed. That signal is then sent to a transmission system, which converts the sound into electromagnetic waves and broadcasts it over an assigned frequency—such as FM, or “frequency modulation”—allowing anyone within range to tune in using a standard radio receiver. In Gaza before the war, this process relied on local transmission towers to distribute signals throughout the Strip. Now, with those towers destroyed, stations like Hona Ghazza assemble their programs much the same way but send the audio via the Internet to transmitters outside Gaza, which then relay the signal back into the territory using the FM band. To guard against frequent power and connectivity outages, producers must also prepare pre-recorded blocks—segments that can play automatically if a live broadcast is interrupted—thereby ensuring that the station remains on the air even when conditions on the ground fail.
Israeli attacks targeted broadcast towers serving telecommunications, radio, Internet, and local television. Major telecommunication companies resorted to mobile transmission vehicles to provide limited cellphone service. But communication across Gaza remained weak and, at times, completely cut off for days.
“After all the transmission towers in Gaza were destroyed, it became impossible to broadcast on FM directly from inside the Strip,” says Abdel Rahman Murtaja, a sound engineer at Hona Ghazza Radio. “So we had to create an alternative transmission route.”
Instead of transmitting audio signals locally in Gaza, the station now sends them outside the enclave via the Internet to Nablus in the West Bank. From there, the programming is relayed to Hebron in the southern West Bank, and then retransmitted back into Gaza, where it can be received again on an FM frequency.
“We are essentially routing the broadcast externally and looping it back,” Murtaja explains. “It’s a substitute system to keep the FM signal alive.”
The workaround is fragile as Internet and electricity services inside Gaza remain unreliable.
“We depend on a deteriorating solar power system and an aging [diesel-powered] generator just to stay on air,” he says. “If the sound engineer loses Internet or power, the broadcast stops entirely.”
To prevent sudden outages, the team prepares pre-recorded programming blocks that can run automatically from the remote location if the live feed is interrupted due to power cuts.
“It’s a temporary safeguard,” he says, “so the station doesn’t disappear totally again.”
Rami Al-Sharafi, a member of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate’s executive body, operated a radio station in Gaza City called Zaman FM before the war. Unable to restore FM transmission, he attempted to broadcast the station’s programming through Facebook, on the 13th of February, streaming only for limited, irregular hours due to technical and logistical constraints.
Al-Sharafi says Israel has deliberately targeted the media sector, including by restricting the entry of broadcasting equipment and preventing the import of radio and satellite transmission devices, “to silence the Palestinian narrative.” Restoring local media, he says, is essential to the public’s right to information and ability to communicate during crises.
Hona Ghazza Radio began broadcasting on 102 FM and was launched through a joint initiative between the Filastiniyat Media Foundation and the An-Najah Media Center at An-Najah National University in Nablus, with support from the European Union and sponsorship from the Bank of Palestine.
The project is part of a broader effort to rebuild Gaza’s damaged media sector, with programming focused on community issues and daily life, at a time when access to reliable local information remains limited. Such topics include local discussions and citizens’ complaints about increased prices, monopolies, taxes, and other issues related to public opinion that are in need of government attention and accountability mechanisms.
Wafa’ Abdel Rahman, director of the Filastiniyat Media Foundation, describes the launch as “a historic day for journalists in Gaza,” but sees it less as a milestone than an act of recovery.
The station, she says, is not simply another frequency returning to the dial—it is a space for Palestinians in Gaza to listen and a platform to air the everyday questions, anxieties, and resilience of people whose access to information has been systematically stripped away. Radio in Gaza is more than a source of news—it is a critical lifeline during war. Unlike the Internet or television, FM broadcasts can be received on battery-powered radios or mobile phones, making them one of the few reliable ways to reach people during power outages and communication blackouts. When networks collapse, radio can carry urgent updates on public safety, aid, and daily conditions, helping communities to stay informed and connected. In this context, restoring FM transmission is not just technical—it is an essential component of maintaining a basic form of civic life under siege.
The idea, Wafa’ Abdel Rahman explains, took shape during the war, when Internet blackouts and the destruction of media institutions left Palestinians in the enclave isolated from reliable sources of news. In the absence of well-functioning local news outlets, there was an immediate and practical need for a broadcast signal capable of delivering essential updates and reestablishing a civic lifeline. What began as an effort to restore basic communication gradually expanded into a broader media initiative, spanning radio, television, and other digital platforms to not only transmit information, but to rebuild a public sphere of life in Gaza.
Decades after Israeli forces first occupied Deir al-Balah as part of the Israeli occupation for the Gaza Strip, during this latest war on Gaza, the city has stood out as a place of less destruction. As radio towers across Gaza City were reduced to rubble and radio frequencies fell silent for almost two years, Deir al-Balah became an unlikely sanctuary as the only region spared a full land incursion by the Israeli military.
Unlike the station in Deir al-Balah, which managed to restore its FM transmission, most radio stations throughout the enclave have only been able to return as online stations, streaming through the Internet—a fragile substitute in a territory where electricity is scarce and connectivity unreliable as FM radio can reach a battery-powered receiver in the dark while Internet transmissions cannot.
Al-Quds Radio, one of Gaza’s most popular stations before the war, also tried to resume its operations. On February 13, annually designated by the United Nations as World Radio Day, veteran broadcaster Emad Nour, whose voice is familiar to many generations in Gaza, returned for the first time since October, to the station’s headquarters in the heavily damaged Shawa and Hosari Tower in Gaza City. Inside, he found no intact walls or doors—only tarps stretched across shattered concrete. Technicians had salvaged what little radio equipment they could. The three staff members still at the station made an improvised desk out of a broken cabinet door and broken shelves. One of them manually spliced wires to connect a microphone. Securing Internet access required patience and luck.
Against all odds, they went on air on February 13—World Radio Day—reintroducing Nour’s morning program that had previously been a familiar presence in homes, alleyways, and on taxi radios throughout Gaza.
“For many people, it was a moment of joy,” Nour tells The Progressive. The return of the program felt, he says, like “a phoenix rising.” For a few hours, the familiar theme music restored something resembling life before the war.
The Al-Quds Radio broadcast revival lasted only two days.
A few days after Nour’s first broadcast, staff members witnessed a small quadcopter drone circle above the radio transmitter atop the station’s tower in the city’s densely populated Rimal neighborhood before it detonated overhead. The station was not directly hit, but residents saw it as a warning. Fearing that continued broadcasting could put civilians at risk, the team immediately shut the station down.
“There was no formal warning,” Nour says. “But the explosion was message enough. We stopped [broadcasting] again.”
“We don’t know when we will be able to air again,” he adds. “The war is not over.”
In Gaza, radio signals now travel hundreds of miles before returning home—a testament to how much was lost, and how determined broadcasters remain to be heard.