Internet & Online Safety · Palestine
Online safety & content laws in Palestine (2026)
Palestine shaded by its internet & online safety status
The Palestinian Authority regulates online content primarily through the 2018 Cybercrime Law by Decree, which is widely criticized for using overbroad terms ("national security," "public order," "public morals") to criminalize online expression and authorize the blocking of websites. There is no modern, rights-based online-safety regime comparable to the EU DSA or UK OSA, no specific age-verification framework, and platform liability is addressed mainly through criminal prohibitions and blocking powers rather than a regulatory duty-of-care model. In practice the law has been used to block dozens of news and opposition websites, and the underlying telecom infrastructure is heavily constrained by Israeli control.
Key points
Law by Decree No. 10 of 2018 on Cybercrime (replacing the heavily criticized 2017 Decree No. 16) is the governing instrument; it was enacted by presidential decree without Legislative Council approval and was later amended by Decree No. 28 of 2020.
Article 39 lets investigative authorities request that the Attorney General seek a Magistrate Court order to block any website (inside or outside Palestine) deemed to threaten national security, public order or public morals; orders run for 6 renewable months.
On 17 October 2019 the Ramallah Magistrate Court ordered 59 websites blocked at once; the PA has a documented history of blocking news and opposition sites critical of the leadership, drawing criticism from Palestinian and international rights groups.
The law criminalizes broadly-defined online conduct and re-disseminating content from blocked sites (penalties include imprisonment and fines in Jordanian dinars); the UN Special Rapporteur and HRW warned its vague terms enable criminalizing opinion and curb privacy and free expression.
There is no comprehensive platform duty-of-care, systemic-risk, or statutory age-verification framework; online safety is handled through criminal-law prohibitions and court-ordered blocking rather than a dedicated online-safety regulator.
Under Oslo-era arrangements, radio spectrum needs Israeli approval; Gaza is limited to 2G and the West Bank only received 4G authorization in January 2026, while Israeli operations destroyed much of Gaza's telecom infrastructure during the 2023–2024 war.
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