Quick Facts
This is a connectivity guide. It covers which mobile networks exist in the Palestinian territories, which of them our plans actually reach, and what to expect on the ground. Where a political, territorial or safety statement is needed to make a connectivity fact make sense, it is attributed to a named source with its date, and nothing more is claimed than that source supports.
Connectivity
- • Network our plans use: Ooredoo Palestine, and only that
- • Mobile country code: 425 (shared with Israel)
- • Ooredoo Palestine: MNC 06 | Jawwal: MNC 05
- • Generation: 3G, with 4G arriving in the West Bank
- • Gaza: 2G, and not a destination we sell for
- • Dialling code: +970
Practical
- • Emergency: 100 police, 101 ambulance, 102 fire
- • Currency: Israeli new shekel (ILS); Jordanian dinar and US dollars are also used in the West Bank
- • Languages: Arabic, with English widely used in tourism
- • Time zone: UTC+2, UTC+3 during summer time
- • Power: 230 V, plug types C and H
- • Travel advice: read it before booking — see below
Population and land-area figures that appeared in an earlier version of this page have been removed rather than repeated: we could not verify them against a source we were willing to cite, and a connectivity guide does not need them.
What a Palestine eSIM Actually Reaches
The one fact that decides everything else
Every Palestine plan in our catalogue declares exactly one operator: Ooredoo Palestine. Not Jawwal. Not an Israeli network. We read the coverage rows behind each plan on 13 September 2026 and there is no second network to fall back on. A plan with one operator does not roam its way out of a coverage hole, so knowing the operator tells you more about where the plan works than any coverage percentage could.
Plan by plan, from our own coverage data
| Plan family | Operators it declares | Covers Israel too? |
|---|---|---|
| Palestine country plans 1 GB to 20 GB, 7 to 30 days | Ooredoo Palestine only (425-06) | No |
| Palestine unlimited plans 3 to 15 days | Ooredoo Palestine only | No |
| Middle East & North Africa regional 1 GB to unlimited | Ooredoo Palestine for the Palestinian territories, Cellcom for Israel | Yes |
| Israel country plans | Hot Mobile and Pelephone only | Israel only — no Palestinian operator |
Buy a Palestine plan if
- • Your trip is West Bank towns: Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jericho, Nablus, Hebron
- • You are staying in Palestinian-run accommodation with Wi-Fi as a backstop
- • Jerusalem is a day trip rather than the spine of the itinerary
- • You want the cheapest per-GB option for the West Bank specifically
Buy the regional plan instead if
- • You fly into Ben Gurion and need data the moment you land
- • You are crossing between Israeli- and Palestinian-controlled areas daily
- • You are working and cannot afford an unexplained hour with no service
- • Your itinerary also takes in Jordan, Egypt or the Gulf
Cross-reference: our Israel eSIM guide covers the Israeli operators in the same way, and the Palestine eSIM page lists every live plan with today's price.
Before You Book: Current Travel Advice
UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories
The following is how the FCDO advisory stood on its page when it was last updated on 22 July 2026. Advice of this kind changes without notice and this page will not change with it, so treat the summary as a reason to go and read the live version, not as a substitute for it.
Advises against all travel to
- • Gaza
- • Anywhere within 500 m of the border with Gaza
- • Tulkarm, Jenin and Tubas Governorates, except Route 90
- • Parts of northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights
Advises against all but essential travel to
- • The rest of the West Bank, except:
- — East Jerusalem
- — Bethlehem Governorate
- — Ramallah Municipality
- — Jericho municipality
- — Highway 1, Highway 3, Route 443, Highway 45
The FCDO also notes that travel insurance is commonly invalidated by travelling against its advice. Read the current version at gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/israel.
What this means in practice
The three West Bank destinations that most visitors actually come for — Bethlehem, Ramallah and Jericho — are named exceptions to the advisory, and East Jerusalem is too. Much of the rest of the West Bank is not. If you hold a passport other than a British one, your own foreign ministry publishes its own advice and it does not always match; read yours. We are not in a position to tell you whether to go, and we are not going to pretend the question does not arise.
Crossings and entry
Movement into and within the West Bank runs through Israeli-controlled crossings and checkpoints, and under the Oslo interim framework the West Bank is divided into Areas A, B and C with different administrative and security arrangements in each. Specific crossing procedures, opening hours and documentary requirements change often enough that publishing them here would do more harm than good — we have deliberately left them out rather than print a procedure we cannot stand behind. Confirm the current position with your own government's travel advice and with whoever is hosting or guiding you.
Palestine eSIM Pricing & Plans
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Installation Guide
Install before you fly. Adding an eSIM profile needs a working internet connection, and the moment you most want the plan is the moment you are least likely to have one. Do it at home on trusted Wi-Fi, then simply switch it on when you arrive.
iPhone
- 1.Settings → Cellular → Add eSIM
- 2.Scan the QR code from your order email
- 3.Label the line so you can tell it apart from your home SIM
- 4.Set it as your default data line
- 5.Turn Data Roaming on for that line only
Android
- 1.Settings → Network & Internet
- 2.Tap the + next to Mobile Network
- 3.Choose "Download a SIM instead?"
- 4.Scan the QR code and follow the prompts
- 5.Enable the profile and turn on roaming for it
The step people skip here: know your operator name before you land. Because a Palestine plan carries a single network, manual network selection is the fix that resolves most "no service" reports — and you want to be looking for Ooredoo, not guessing at a list of Hebrew and Arabic network names on a screen you cannot read.
Coverage and the Spectrum Situation
The binding constraint on mobile data in the Palestinian territories is not tower density, it is the spectrum Palestinian operators are permitted to use. This is the single most misreported thing about connectivity here, in both directions — pages that promise 5G are wrong, and pages that say nothing has changed since 2018 are also wrong.
West Bank: 3G, with 4G arriving
Palestinian operators in the West Bank ran on 3G for years. On 6 January 2026, Israel authorised the enhancement of 4G mobile services for Palestinians in the West Bank — reported by The Times of Israel on that date and recorded in the reference literature on Palestinian telecommunications. Authorisation is not the same thing as a finished roll-out, and our own suppliers have not caught up with each other: the eSIMfly coverage rows for Palestine still say 3G on Ooredoo, while the Airalo rows for the live unlimited plans say LTE.
What to plan for: 3G speeds as the baseline, 4G as a bonus where you find it. Maps, messaging, translation and email are comfortable. Large uploads and video calls are not reliably comfortable, and you should not build a working day around them.
Gaza: 2G
Mobile service in Gaza has remained constrained to 2G. No data plan sold anywhere can engineer around a 2G-only network, and we would rather say that plainly than sell you something on a promise it cannot keep. See the Gaza section below.
Israeli networks are in the air here too
Israeli operators' signals are physically receivable across much of the West Bank, which is why travellers often report a phone flipping between Hebrew- and Arabic-named networks. That is a fact about radio, not a fact about your plan. A Palestine eSIM cannot use those networks, because it does not carry them.
Where Ooredoo Palestine is worth relying on
Solid, in normal conditions
- • Bethlehem and Beit Sahour
- • Ramallah and Al-Bireh
- • Jericho town
- • Nablus urban area
- • Hebron city
- • The main inter-city roads between them
Do not rely on it
- • West Jerusalem and Israeli-controlled areas generally
- • Ben Gurion Airport
- • The Israeli-controlled Dead Sea shore
- • Remote Area C villages and the Jordan Valley away from Route 90
- • Gaza
This list describes where a single-operator plan is a sensible bet and where it is not. We have not published a coverage percentage, because we do not have a figure for Ooredoo Palestine that we could source.
The Jerusalem Problem
Almost every itinerary that includes the West Bank also includes Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is where a single-operator Palestine plan is most likely to let you down. The status of Jerusalem is disputed and this guide does not attempt to settle it; what it can tell you is which radio networks you will find there and what your plan can use.
What is actually in the air
Israeli operators — Cellcom, Partner, Pelephone and Hot Mobile — cover the city comprehensively. Ooredoo Palestine reaches parts of East Jerusalem, but it is not the network the city is built on and it is not what you should plan a day in the Old City around.
What your plan can use
A Palestine plan: Ooredoo only. An Israel plan: Hot Mobile and Pelephone. A Middle East and North Africa regional plan: both Ooredoo Palestine and Cellcom. If you are walking the Old City with a Palestine-only eSIM and see no service, nothing is broken — the plan simply does not carry the network that is there.
The practical recommendation
If your trip is a few days in Bethlehem with one day in Jerusalem, a Palestine plan plus hotel and café Wi-Fi in the city is fine and is the cheapest option. If Jerusalem is where you sleep, or if you move between Israeli- and Palestinian-controlled areas most days, buy the regional plan or carry both a Palestine and an Israel plan. eSIM profiles stack on a modern handset, so carrying two is a real option, not a workaround.
Travel Recommendations
Pick the profile closest to your trip
The recommendations below all rest on the same underlying fact: a Palestine plan carries one operator, Ooredoo Palestine, with no fallback. The differences between profiles are mostly about how much that limitation costs you, and whether it is worth buying around it.
Pilgrim or religious tour
Bethlehem, Jericho and the Jerusalem sites, usually on an organised itinerary
Data needs
Low to moderate — 3 to 5 GB for a week
What we would buy
A Palestine country plan is enough if you sleep in Bethlehem and the Jerusalem days run on coach and hotel Wi-Fi. If you sleep in Jerusalem, a Palestine-only plan will spend most of the trip with no service — take the regional plan or carry an Israel plan alongside.
Practical notes:
- ✓Download offline maps for Bethlehem and the Old City before you go
- ✓Coach and church Wi-Fi covers a surprising share of an organised itinerary
- ✓Photo backup is what silently eats the allowance — set it to Wi-Fi only
- ✓Agree a group messaging app before the first day, not during it
- ✓Save your tour operator number somewhere that does not need data to reach
Journalist or documentary maker
Filing, filming and moving between towns on short notice
Data needs
High — 10 GB or more, or an unlimited plan
What we would buy
Assume 3G speeds as the baseline in the West Bank, and plan your upload windows around Wi-Fi rather than around the mobile network. Carry more than one connectivity option: a single-operator plan is a single point of failure, and this is not a place to discover that at deadline.
Practical notes:
- ✓Upload proxies over mobile data, full-resolution files over Wi-Fi
- ✓Carry both a Palestine plan and an Israel plan if your movements are unpredictable
- ✓Ramallah has the most dependable data of anywhere in this guide
- ✓Do not photograph checkpoints, crossings or military personnel
- ✓Check your own foreign ministry advice for the specific governorates you plan to enter
NGO and humanitarian staff
Field coordination, reporting and duty-of-care check-ins
Data needs
Moderate to high — 10 to 20 GB
What we would buy
Your organisation almost certainly has its own connectivity and security protocol and it overrides anything on this page. What an eSIM adds is a second, independent line that does not depend on a local SIM being registered in someone else’s name — useful, but not a substitute for the protocol.
Practical notes:
- ✓Keep your home SIM active for voice while the eSIM carries data
- ✓Set up an offline check-in method that works with no signal at all
- ✓Know which operator you are meant to be on: for our plans, that is Ooredoo
- ✓Field locations in Area C may have no usable Palestinian signal at all
- ✓Emergency calls work without a data plan — 100, 101, 102
Academic or research visit
University visits, archives, fieldwork and conferences, mostly Ramallah and Bethlehem
Data needs
Moderate — 5 to 10 GB
What we would buy
Institutional Wi-Fi in Ramallah and Bethlehem is generally good, so the mobile plan is for the gaps: getting between sites, calling ahead, and working when the campus network is not available. A country plan sized 5 to 10 GB usually covers a two-week visit.
Practical notes:
- ✓Download the papers and maps you need before you travel, not on arrival
- ✓Video calls over 3G are workable at low resolution and painful at high
- ✓Allow far more time between towns than the map distance suggests
- ✓Ask your host institution which network their own staff use locally
- ✓Keep a Wi-Fi fallback in mind for anything you must deliver on a deadline
Business visit
Meetings in Ramallah or East Jerusalem, often over one or two days
Data needs
Moderate — 5 to 10 GB
What we would buy
If the meetings are in Ramallah, a Palestine plan is the right product. If they are in East or West Jerusalem, or you fly in and out of Ben Gurion the same day, the regional plan is worth the difference — arriving at the airport with a plan that cannot register there is an expensive way to save a few euros.
Practical notes:
- ✓Ben Gurion Airport is not covered by a Palestine-only plan
- ✓Install the profile before you fly — you will not want to do it at the terminal
- ✓Ramallah has coworking space and reliable café Wi-Fi as a backstop
- ✓Build buffer into travel times between Jerusalem and Ramallah
- ✓Carry a power bank: a day of navigation on 3G drains a phone quickly
Independent traveller
Moving between West Bank towns on your own schedule
Data needs
Moderate — 5 GB for a week or so
What we would buy
This is the profile a Palestine country plan suits best, and it is also the profile most exposed to the single-operator limitation, because you will go further off the main routes than a tour does. Download everything you might need offline before you set out each morning.
Practical notes:
- ✓Offline maps for every town you might reach that day, not just the next one
- ✓Offline Arabic in your translation app — it works with no signal
- ✓Shared taxis are how people actually move; ask locally rather than online
- ✓Route conditions change day to day; do not assume yesterday’s route is open
- ✓Read your own government’s current travel advice for each area you enter
Apps that actually earn their place
- • A maps app with the region downloaded offline — the single most useful thing on your phone here
- • A translation app with Arabic downloaded offline — camera translation works with no signal at all
- • A messaging app your hosts and guides already use — ask before you arrive rather than after
- • A currency converter — shekels, dinars and dollars all circulate in the West Bank
An earlier version of this page recommended several named apps for checkpoint queue times and Palestinian product directories. We could not confirm that those apps exist or are maintained, so they have been removed rather than left in place.
Where People Go, and What the Signal Is Like
Bethlehem
The Church of the Nativity, built over the site traditionally identified as the birthplace of Jesus, and Manger Square around it. The historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Ooredoo coverage in the town and in Beit Sahour next door is among the most dependable in the West Bank, and Bethlehem Governorate is one of the areas the FCDO advisory excepts.
Jericho
One of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements known, with Tell es-Sultan and the Umayyad-era Hisham's Palace nearby. Signal is reliable in the town and thins out quickly in the Jordan Valley away from Route 90. Jericho municipality is excepted from the FCDO advisory; the wider valley is not.
Ramallah
The administrative and business centre of the West Bank, and where journalists, NGO staff and academics mostly base themselves. Best data of anywhere in this list. Ramallah Municipality is excepted from the FCDO advisory; note that the exception is the municipality, not the governorate.
Nablus and Hebron
Two old cities with long histories and, in Hebron's case, an old town divided under arrangements that make movement on foot unpredictable street by street. Both have working urban coverage. Neither is excepted from the FCDO's "all but essential travel" advice for the rest of the West Bank.
Battir and Sebastia
The terraced agricultural landscape at Battir and the Roman and Byzantine remains at Sebastia are both worth the detour and both places where a single-operator plan shows its limits. Download your maps before you leave the nearest town.
A note on Jerusalem's Old City
The Old City sites that appear on most Holy Land itineraries — the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Western Wall, the Haram al-Sharif / Temple Mount compound including Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock — are in Jerusalem, whose status is disputed and which this guide does not assign to either side. They are listed here because visitors ask about connectivity there, and the connectivity answer is in the Jerusalem section: a Palestine-only eSIM is the wrong tool for that day.
The Operators
Ooredoo Palestine (425-06)
- • The network every Palestine plan we sell runs on
- • Entered the market in 2009 as the second Palestinian mobile operator
- • Previously branded Wataniya Mobile — the same company, not a third network
- • Operates in the West Bank and Gaza, within the permitted spectrum
Jawwal (425-05)
- • The larger Palestinian operator, part of the Paltel group
- • Serves both the West Bank and Gaza
- • Not carried by any retail Palestine plan we sell — it appears on one VIP pay-as-you-go global product only
- • Worth knowing the name: it is what a local SIM will most often be
Israeli operators, for completeness
Cellcom, Partner, Pelephone and Hot Mobile are Israel's operators. Our Israel country plans declare Hot Mobile and Pelephone; our global plans add Partner; the Middle East and North Africa regional plan declares Cellcom. They are listed here so you can recognise them in a network-selection list, not because a Palestine plan can use them.
One oddity worth knowing: Israel and the Palestinian territories share a single mobile country code, 425. The operators are distinguished by their network codes — Jawwal on 05, Ooredoo Palestine on 06 — which is why coverage checkers that match on country code alone regularly report the wrong thing about this region.
Troubleshooting
No service, and it will not come back
First check you are somewhere Ooredoo Palestine actually serves — in West Jerusalem, at Ben Gurion or deep in Area C, a Palestine plan has nothing to connect to and no amount of resetting will change that. If you are in a West Bank town, open network selection, turn automatic off and pick Ooredoo by hand. Single-operator plans regularly fail to reselect after a period without signal, and manual selection is the standard fix.
The phone keeps hopping between networks
Israeli and Palestinian networks overlap across much of the West Bank, so the network name on your status bar can change several times on a single drive. If your eSIM line has data and your home SIM does not, that is expected. If the eSIM line drops each time the name changes, lock it to Ooredoo manually.
Data is connected but painfully slow
Most likely you are on 3G, which is the baseline here rather than a fault. Turn off background app refresh and automatic photo backup, and download maps and documents while you have Wi-Fi. Do not expect a plan upgrade to fix speed — the allowance and the generation are different things.
The eSIM will not install at all
An eSIM profile can normally only be downloaded once, and it needs internet to download. If the QR code fails, do not keep retrying on a weak connection — get to reliable Wi-Fi first. A handset bought on contract and never unlocked can also refuse a second profile even though the hardware supports eSIM. Check that at home, not at the crossing.
Emergency Numbers
Verified numbers
- • 100 — Police
- • 101 — Ambulance
- • 102 — Fire
The same three numbers are used in Israel.
What to know about calling them
- • Emergency calls do not need an active data plan, credit, or a registered SIM
- • They are placed over whatever network the handset can reach, which here may be a Palestinian or an Israeli one — so which control room answers can depend on where you are standing
- • Save your own government's consular contact details from its official travel advice page before you travel
- • If you are travelling with an organisation, its own duty number will usually get help moving faster than a general line
An earlier version of this page listed direct numbers for a tourist police line, a hospital, two consulates and a Red Cross office. We could not verify any of them — and at least one, a US Consulate General line, was for an office merged into the US Embassy in 2019 — so they have been removed rather than corrected on guesswork. A wrong emergency number is worse than no number.
Gaza
We do not sell for Gaza, and this page does not present it as a destination.
- • The UK FCDO advises against all travel to Gaza, and against all travel within 500 metres of the border with Gaza. That was the position on its page when last updated on 22 July 2026.
- • Mobile service in Gaza has remained constrained to 2G. No data plan can work around that.
- • Our Palestine plans carry Ooredoo Palestine, which operates in Gaza as well as the West Bank, but nothing we sell should be bought on the assumption that it will deliver usable service there.
An earlier version of this section carried a set of statistics about conditions in Gaza and a call to political action. Neither belongs in a connectivity guide written by a company that sells data plans: we could not verify the figures against sources we were willing to cite, and it is not our place to campaign. If you want authoritative information on the humanitarian situation, go to the organisations that report on it directly — the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs publishes its own data at ochaopt.org — rather than to a page like this one.
On the Ground
Worth doing
- • Dress modestly at religious sites of every denomination
- • Learn a few words of Arabic — it is noticed and appreciated
- • Ask before photographing people, as you would anywhere
- • Download offline maps for each town before you set out
- • Carry a power bank: days are long and charging points are not where you want them
- • Allow far more time between towns than the distance suggests
Worth avoiding
- • Photographing checkpoints, crossings or military personnel
- • Entering areas signposted as restricted
- • Assuming a route that worked yesterday will be open today
- • Relying on a single connectivity option with no Wi-Fi fallback
- • Treating anyone's account of the situation, including this page's, as the whole of it
Apps that earn their place: a maps app with the region downloaded offline, a translation app with Arabic downloaded offline, and a messaging app your hosts and guides actually use. An earlier version of this page recommended several apps we could not confirm exist; they have been removed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which network does a Palestine eSIM actually use?
Does a Palestine eSIM work in Jerusalem?
Does an Israel eSIM cover the West Bank?
Is it 3G or 4G in the West Bank?
What about Gaza?
Which parts of the West Bank does UK travel advice cover?
What are the emergency numbers?
How much data does a pilgrimage or study trip need?
Should I buy a local SIM instead?
Sources and Date of Check
- • Which networks our plans carry: our own coverage data, read on 13 September 2026. 22 live plans returned for Palestine; every Palestine plan declares Ooredoo Palestine and no other operator.
- • Travel advice: UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as the page stood when last updated 22 July 2026.
- • 4G authorisation in the West Bank (6 January 2026) and 2G in Gaza: reference literature on Palestinian telecommunications, citing The Times of Israel of 6 January 2026 and SMEX of 21 December 2023 respectively.
- • Emergency numbers and operator history: standard reference works, checked 13 September 2026.
Prices shown on this page are pulled live from our catalogue and change. Everything else was accurate on 13 September 2026 to the best of our ability to verify it. Where we could not verify something, we removed it rather than rounding it off.
Get connected before you arrive
One operator, no surprises — see what a Palestine plan costs today
Compare Palestine eSIM Plans