Almost three years into a war that has devastated the Palestinian economy, the country’s tech sector arrived at LEAP 2026, Saudi Arabia’s flagship tech conference, with a message aimed squarely at international investors: Look past the headlines.
“Don’t believe what you hear,” said Dr Abdel Razzaq Natsheh, Palestinian Minister of Telecommunications and Digital Economy, in an interview with Al Arabiya English. “It’s not just about the crisis... come and see with your own eyes.”
On the sidelines of the LEAP conference in Riyadh, Natsheh told a story of resilience.
He pointed to a Palestinian semiconductor design-verification firm that grew from five employees to 150 during the war as well as pointing out that the country’s telecoms networks and businesses kept operating throughout the conflict.
The pitch came alongside Palestine’s formal signing of the Digital Cooperation Organisation (DCO) charter, positioning Ramallah within a bloc expanding from 16 to 24 member states.
Natsheh named Saudi Arabia as the partnership’s driving force, alongside Jordan, Qatar, the UK, Ireland and the US, and credited the DCO relationship with finally bringing 4G connectivity to the West Bank with Gaza “hopefully” to follow.
He announced that Palestine wants to train more than 10,000 workers in cloud computing, AI, cybersecurity and DevOps, and to double the tech sector’s contribution to GDP from 5 percent to 10 percent under a three-year “digital prosperity plan” agreed with the DCO.
Much of this current contribution comes from outsourcing and consulting rather than original product, he said. The next phase is for Palestinian firms to move beyond back-office services and build products for regional and global markets.
Natsheh pointed to a shift from semiconductor testing to semiconductor design as an example already underway.
He acknowledged the scale of the challenge however: A small domestic market, limited resources and infrastructure.
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