Wherever you are, whatever sand you can throw on the gears of genocide, do it now. If it’s a handful, throw it. If it’s a fingernail full, scrape it out and throw. Get in the way however you can. The elimination of the Palestinian people is not inevitable. We can refuse with our every breath and action. We must.

-Rasha Abdulhadi, queer disabled Palestinian poet and activist 

Note: Signing up for this jam requires an additional submission via our Google Form application. You must join the jam here AND fill out the form. Thanks!

Background

Palestinians continue to face genocide perpetrated by the Israeli state and its military and ideological backers across Europe and North America. Since the current escalation of violence began in October 2023, hundreds of thousands of Gazans have been killed, injured, and disabled by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), and over a million have lost their homes. The zionist state has made it clear that they intend to completely destroy the people and infrastructure in order to expand their illegal settlements. 

In addition to relentless bombings and the wanton murder of civilians, journalists, doctors, and frontline workers, evacuation routes and aid shipments continue to be blockaded by the IOF. As a result, food, water and medical supplies are scarce. Meanwhile, media blackouts and attacks on telecommunication networks sever lifelines between communities and allow Israeli crimes to go undocumented. 

The announcement of a temporary ceasefire in January 2025 offers some hope, but Israel has yet to show any real commitment to ending its onslaught, and repairing the damage done to Palestinian communities and institutions will take decades.

The critical role of eSims

In order to communicate with their families, send and receive warnings about Israeli attacks, and document the atrocities they face, many Palestinians rely on eSims - digitally activated cellular voice/data cards. Since they do not require physical hardware, eSims can be purchased and topped-up online by anyone, anywhere. In a time when moving basic resources like food and cash into Gaza has become virtually impossible, eSims remain a valuable and accessible site of support.

Crips for eSims For Gaza

Inspired by the work of Egyptian writer and activist Mirna El Helbawi, who founded #ConnectingGaza to get eSims directly to people in Gaza, Crips for eSims for Gaza is a collaboration between Jane Shi, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Alice Wong. Recognizing the inextricability of Palestinian liberation and global disability justice movements, the group came together in late 2023 to rally support from disabled people around the world to purchase and maintain eSims for use by Palestinians trapped under Israeli occupation.

Since the project's inception, nearly $2 million CAD has been contributed by over 35K supporters to buy and top-up over 18K eSims, thousands of which are in active use. This mutual-aid driven communications network has supported "doctors, nurses, paramedics, journalists, family members, and students, from those covering the Flour Massacre and the massacres at Al Shifa Hospital to students downloading PDFs for their online classes, after their universities and libraries have all been destroyed."

The Crips for eSims for Gaza Itch.io Bundle

Despite the support & solidarity Crips for eSims for Gaza has garnered, the constant erasure of the genocide makes fundraising a ongoing challenge. Itch.io has hosted several bundles over the past decade that have mobilized millions of dollars for racial and social justice struggles, and we hope to tap that collective capacity to move resources directly to Palestinian people fighting for their lives, for visibility, and for liberation.

For creators, contributing to the bundle is a simple but meaningful way to build solidarity with grassroots organizers directly supporting Palestinians. Israel's efforts to shut down communication and block the flow of vital resources to families, communities, and freedom fighters is brutal and inhumane. eSims create avenues of connection and hope.

What kind of submissions are you looking for?

Broadly speaking, we invite a full spectrum of digital and physical content: video games, tabletop games, zines, comics, books/novels, asset packs, and any other existing itch.io project you'd like to submit!

Additionally (these are important, please take note!):

1. Honoring the demands of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, all submitted work should respect these core principles of Palestinian sovereignty, as paraphrased from Wikipedia: 

• [The end of] the Israeli occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in 1967 and dismantling the Wall;
• Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
• Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

This doesn't mean your project has to address Palestine directly, but we will not include work that in any way undermines the fundamental humanity or struggle for liberation of Palestinian people under Israeli occupation.

2. We will not accept or platform work that promotes racist, sexist, fatphobic, transmisogynistic, ableist, saneist, xenophobic, anti-black, anti-Muslim, anti-Indigenous or otherwise oppressive ideology. We welcome submissions that engage with real-world power dynamics in thoughtful, critical ways, but any overt or implicit (dog-whistling) reactionary content will be rejected.

3. Recognizing the role of "AI capitalism" in the mass theft of creative and intellectual labor and accelerating environmental devastation, "AI"-generated or "AI"-centric content will not be included in the bundle.

3. Finally, we may choose not to include submissions that feature sexually exploitative or exclusively sexual content. This is not a debate about the basic legitimacy of sexually explicit content, but a consideration made in the broader context of the bundle.

Fundraising Principles and Goals

The Crips for eSims for Gaza Bundle is a mutual aid bundle directly supporting the critical work of moving resources to Palestinian people. Over a sale period of 2 weeks, we hope to raise at least $20K for the organization’s ongoing operations. The base price of the bundle will be $16 USD, the current approximate price of one eSim activation for use in Palestine.

100% of bundle proceeds will be forwarded to Crips for eSims for Gaza, a volunteer-run non-profit organization that uses contributed funds to purchase and top-up eSims for use by Palestinians. Crips for eSims for Gaza's financial accountability document is publicly viewable here.

We invite artists and developers across the spectrum of media hosted in itch.io to submit their work. As with most justice and movement-center bundles, our intention is not to offer a specific monetary or product “value” to contributors or purchasers, but to generate direct support for Palestinians through the familiar and relatively accessible medium of the digital media bundle.

Please note: No Steam (or other external keys) will be given for bundle purchases. Only direct downloads will be available on the itch.io page.

Contact & Inquiries

This bundle is a collaborative effort between Crips for eSims for Gaza, Barabones, BaiYu, and hexcavator. If you have questions about the submission process or other details related to the bundle, contact:cripsforesimsforgazabundle@gmail.com . For general inquiries about Crips for eSims for Gaza, write: cripsforesimsforgaza@gmail.com

Finally, a friendly reminder: