AI regulation in Palestine: laws & policy (2026)

In 2021 the Palestinian Council of Ministers formed a national AI team, headed by the Ministry of Telecommunications and Digital Economy with government, academic and private-sector members; it produced a National AI Strategy launched in 2023 covering government modernization, sectoral development, legal framework and capacity building.

There is no comprehensive or sector-specific AI statute in force. The strategy itself only calls for building a legal framework addressing human rights, monitoring, liability, fairness, accountability and transparency, work that is still planned, not enacted.

The strategy's first phase targets AI in transportation, energy, agriculture, environment, water management, healthcare, Arabic-language processing, economic planning, manufacturing, smart infrastructure, tourism and cybersecurity, plus integration into government services.

Palestine engaged with UNESCO's ethics-of-AI framework, using the Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM) to gauge preparedness for ethical/responsible AI, and was among the pilot countries for the Global Index on Responsible AI completed in September 2023.

A supporting personal-data-protection legal foundation is not settled: civil-society body 7amleh analyzed a Personal Data Protection draft law-by-decree from a human-rights perspective, indicating the privacy framework underpinning AND AI accountability remains at the draft stage.

Implementation is nascent, governance bodies, draft instruments, pilot programs in education and data infrastructure, and university AI/robotics programs, but institutionalization is described as still in early stages, with no enforcement regime.