Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel today declared that it could start a cable war with Bezeq if the Civil Administration continued to dig up fibroptic cables it has been laying in the Territories.
Paltel received an exclusive concession to develop telecommunications in the Territories. The company works in conjunction with Israeli companies, among them Telrad and Tadiran Telecommunications, purchasing equipment from them to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. Inter alia, the company undertook to complete the connection of a certain number of new subscribers to the telephone network it is setting up within set periods of time.
The declaration came after, this morning, representatives of the West Bank Civil Administration dug up a fibroptic cable that had been laid on the Tulkarem-Nablus road, some four kilometers from Nablus, and disconnected it on the grounds that it crossed area C, and had been laid without an Israeli license.
Paltel’s planning and projects manager Mutia Da’ibas confirmed that the cable had indeed been laid a month ago without a license, but said this was because the Civil Administration had given the company the run-around for eight months. He said Palestinian license applications were rejected by the Civil Administration, whereas Bezeq’s applications were approved within a few days.
The company’s requests for a meeting with the head of the West Bank Civil Administration have been denied several times. Because of this, the company warned that it would lay the cables even without a license. Da’ibas said the Oslo agreement made it obligatory to apply for a license, but also required a response to such applications, and the Civil Administration was in fact not responding to Paltel’s applications at all.
The Civil Administration for Judea and Samaria said in response that it was true that no final answer had yet been given to the Palestinian application. Nevertheless, the Administration’s spokesperson said, the Palestinians had been told at the time they submitted the application that it would probably be rejected, because there were plans to lay water pipes in the same place.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on March 11, 1999