RAMALLAH, West Bank — As of the evening of Aug. 30, the Palestinian post office in the southern West Bank city of Jericho was still busy sorting 10 tons of mail. The Palestinian Authority had distributed only half of the massive backlog it received in mid-August from Jordan when the Israeli authorities finally released it after an eight-year delay.
Ramadan Ghazzawi, the Palestinian Post official overseeing the sorting process, told Al-Monitor that workers in the post office in Jericho and many other offices across the West Bank have been working day and night, adding, “We still need another three weeks to get through all the mail and distribute it to West Bank post offices.”
On Aug. 13, Palestinian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Allam Mousa announced that Israel had released about 10 tons of mail held since 2010. It includes mail shipped at various costs and priority levels. Dozens of workers have been sorting hundreds of plastic bags at the Palestinian Post in Jericho in the West Bank.
Israel and the PA signed an agreement in 2008 for direct postal exchange via Jordan under the auspices of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), but the agreement was not implemented. Both parties renewed the agreement in September 2016 to allow Palestinians to receive mail through Jordan via land crossings after spending 48 hours in Israeli security screening, but the agreement was yet again not implemented.
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