Visiting a pornographic website within the borders of the Gaza Strip is no easy task. The ban on these sites, called “filtering,” was issued by Osama al-Issawi, minister of communications and information technology in the Gaza government, and came into effect on Aug. 29, 2012. All Internet providers in the Gaza Strip abide by this decision.

Ziad Sheikh Dib, director of the licensing department at the Ministry of Communications, told Al-Monitor in an interview at the ministry that these pornographic sites have been blocked at “the request of people from the Gaza Strip.” He added that the filtration system is automatically applied whenever citizens use the Internet within the Gaza Strip. Dib pointed out that this was once optional when Internet was connected to the landline and when people could enable or disable the protection system.

Dib did not deny that there are proxies that can break the protection system. He asserted, however, that 80% of the population of Gaza cannot access these websites now.

“This decision serves regular Internet users. Those looking for these kinds of films, however, will find a way to obtain them, either by sharing DVDs or videos or by using a chip that provides them with Internet through a network that is not local [VPN],” he added.