it’s not just chat over Bluetooth, the message is relayed over a mesh so you can chat with people much further than Bluetooth range.

BitChat can send messages over Bluetooth, and it uses a mesh network to relay messages across nearby devices. This allows messages to hop from one phone to another, extending coverage beyond the normal Bluetooth range, though the number of hops is limited and depends on nearby devices. When a device in the mesh has an internet connection, certain messages can be published to Nostr, allowing them to move from the local mesh to the global network. Not all messages are automatically sent online, and purely mesh-local chats remain local. Messages sent via Nostr can also be accessed through clients like NYM (Nostr Ynstant Messenger). BitChat combines offline mesh networking with a decentralized protocol to enable both local and global communication.

AFAIK they used to have internet, but Israel clamped down on it more and more, at the same time they shot as many journalists as they could. Has there been anything out of Gaza in ages?

There is internet in Gaza. The company is called Paltel if I am not wrong.

They have monopoly there so if you read online reviews (from before the current war) they were not very popular.

what are you talking about about? they have internet and the they had it 99% of the time during the war.

You make it sound like it's ubiquitous and constant. Just to clarify what access means:

From Wikipedia:

> By December 2023 200,000 people living in Gaza (around 10% of the population) had received internet access through an eSIM.

> As of August 2024, according to a Palestinian source, over 70% of telecommunications have been rendered inoperable. As of June 2025, Paltel is still providing some internet and landline telephone services in southern Gaza. There have been at least 10 outages since the conflict began. The lack of reliable telecommunications has hampered efforts by first responders and humanitarian groups.

From the above it sounds like maybe 3% of the population have access (as of a year ago), and there are regular outages. It also says that access has been insufficient.

I guess if even one or two people use it that's a good thing. BUT. It probably would struggle with RTL and LTR stuff regarding arabic script vs latin script (and people across the world are forgoing traditional scripts for latin characters ... seems bad)