GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — On Jan. 2, Palestinian Authority (PA) Attorney General Ahmed Barak issued a decision to commission members of the Public Prosecution to start operating the Cybercrime Task Force in preparation for the issuance of the Cybercrime Law, which is expected to be passed in the first half of the year.

The law would address all forms of electronic crimes, in light of the recent high number of cybercrimes in Palestine. Per Palestinian police statistics in Ramallah, 2016 witnessed more than 1,200 cybercrimes compared to 520 in 2015, according to officer Louay Azriqat, the spokesman for the Palestinian police in Ramallah.

Amal (a pseudonym) is a 26-year-old woman from Jenin, working in a private production company. Her Facebook account was hacked, but she did not file a complaint with the police forces. Instead, she contacted an IT technician who managed to recover her account.

“I did not file a complaint because this might take a while to be solved and might further complicate things. All I wanted was to recover my account, and I managed to do so without referring to the police,” she told Al-Monitor.