Communications in the State of Palestine occur across many media, including telephone, radio, television, and internet.[1] The telecom infrastructure is growing at a very rapid pace and continually being updated and expanded.
Internet and Telephone
- Country calling code: +970 or +972
There are several palestinian internet and telephone companies, major ones are:
- Paltel, a subsidiary of Paltel Group, provides telephone and internet services.[2][3]
- Mada Al-Arab or mada.ps provides internet services.[4][3]
Mobile
The Israeli Ministry of Communications has control over the cellular communications and technology Palestinians may build, which has been limited to 2G.[5] Israeli bombardment, electricity blockades and fuel shortages have caused the near-total collapse of Gaza’s largest cell network providers.[6] There are two mobile operators in the Palestinian territories: Jawwal with 2.9m customers,[7] and Ooredoo with 400,000 customers.
Radio
There are 25 licensed FM stations broadcasting in the Palestinian territories.
FM Stations
- Ajyal only has 8 stations - www.arn.ps
- Raya - www.raya.fm
On October 1, 1999, the International Telecommunication Union assigned the call block E4A through E4Z to Palestine. Aircraft tail numbers, amateur radio stations, vessels at sea and other radio facilities licensed by the Palestinian Authority will carry call signs beginning with "E4."
Censorship
In 2008 opennet stated "Access to Internet in the Palestinian territories remains relatively open, although social filtering of sexually explicit content has been implemented in Gaza. Internet in the West Bank remains almost entirely unfiltered, save for a single news Web site that was banned for roughly six months starting in late 2008. Media freedom is constrained in Gaza and the West Bank by the political upheaval and internal conflict as well as by the Israeli forces."[8]
On 23 April 2012, EFF published a list of websites censored by some Palestinian ISPs.[9] That same day, the Tor Project announced that they are witnessing politically motivated censorship in Bethlehem.[10]
In May 2012, the Ma'an news agency stated "The Palestinian Authority has quietly instructed Internet providers to block access to news websites whose reporting is critical of President Mahmoud Abbas."[11]
Palestine Post is responsible for providing postal service in West Bank, while the Ministry of Telecom and Information Technology of the State of Palestine is responsible for postal service in the Gaza Strip. Generally, international letters addressed to West Bank are routed through both Jordan and Israel and the international letters addressed to Gaza are routed through only Israel. Delays often happen during sending and receiving letters from Palestine. Without these two national postal authorities, no international courier service would be serving the areas.[citation needed]
Newspapers
Television
2023 Israel–Gaza war
During the 2023 Israel–Gaza war, telecommunications company Paltel kept its networks online for most of the first six weeks. The company has a network operations center in Ramallah, West Bank. As of 2023, Paltel has 750 staff in Gaza, and they perform maintenance tasks such as repairing and refueling generators when an outage is detected. Five Paltel staff have been killed in the conflict. Paltel networks are essential for coordinating emergency services and humanitarian aid, and for documenting conditions inside Gaza.[12]
In response to previous wars in Gaza, Paltel has made preparations and has many contingencies to help keep its networks online. It buries its cables very deep (up to 26 feet), and has multiple power sources available such as batteries, solar panels, and generators. Ultimately, Paltel is reliant on Israel, because its two main fiber optic cables pass through Israel. Israel has turned off telecommunications by interfering with these cables twice before.[12]
On November 3, 2023, the BBC World Service launched an emergency radio service for Gaza,[13] broadcasting on long-range AM from the British East Mediterranean Relay Station, to "provide listeners in Gaza with the latest information and developments as well as safety advice on where to access shelter, food and water supplies".[14]
On November 16, 2023, due to fuel shortages, Internet and telephone services went down in Gaza. This also resulted in a suspension of humanitarian aid convoys because humanitarian agencies could not communicate.[15] On November 18, services were partially restored, after some fuel was allowed in and allocated to telecommunications.[16] On November 21, an Israeli strike against a telecommunications tower in North Gaza led to a telecommunications blackout in that area.[17]
An organisation called Connecting Humanity provides internet access to people in Gaza using donated eSIMs, allowing them to connect to networks outside of Gaza.[18][19][20] By December 2023 200,000 people living in Gaza (around 10% of the population) had received internet access through an eSIM.[21][22][23]
See also
References
This article incorporates public domain material from The World Factbook. CIA.
