Palestine announces that Israel has destroyed 74 of Gaza s telecommunications sector assets

A Palestinian official said on Sunday that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip caused widespread devastation to the telecommunications sector, destroying approximately 74% of its assets. This came in a speech delivered by Huda al-Wahidi, Undersecretary of the Palestinian Ministry of Telecommunications and Digital Economy, during a meeting of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Board of Directors in Geneva, according to a ministry statement.

Al-Wahidi explained that direct losses to the telecommunications sector in Gaza are estimated at $164 million, as a result of the destruction of 580 cellular towers and major fiber networks. She also estimated expected economic losses over the next five years at $736 million. Al-Wahidi warned of the continued deterioration of the digital infrastructure in Gaza, stressing that the Strip is experiencing an “unprecedented crisis” that has caused widespread disruption to telecommunications services, in light of the absence of any practical steps to implement UN Resolution 1424 of 2014, which concerns the reconstruction of the Palestinian telecommunications sector. Al-Wahidi called on the Federation Council to develop an urgent implementation plan to implement the decision, calling for the protection of the digital infrastructure from Israeli targeting, which has almost completely destroyed the infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

In the West Bank, the Palestinian official indicated that Israeli military incursions and closures have caused losses estimated at $215.4 million, in addition to the illegal expansion of Israeli networks, which has disrupted Palestinian development and expansion projects.