Palestinians under occupation launch blogs, Facebook group

Ma’an - Sharif Al Sharif, 27, launched his blog in 2006 when there were only a handful of bloggers in the Gaza Strip.

Now, he says, there are more than 50. The past year has seen a boom in social media in Gaza as young women, and men like Sharif, take to the web to join a global community they are otherwise unable to access. A growing international audience is logging on to read them.

Increasingly, blogs and social media provide outlets to vent. This was clearly demonstrated by Gaza's Youth Breaks Out, a group of young Gazans that erupted on Facebook earlier this year with a firey manifesto:

"We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!

"We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16's breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in." Read more