An-Najah News -  

The Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology is mulling the possibility of adopting an alternative search engine to the internet search giant, Google, in response to the latter's removal of Palestine from its maps, according to the Minister Ishaq Sidr.

Sidr said the removal of Palestine from the two giants' maps means violations of Palestinian human rights and a blind bias for the Israeli occupation and a crisis center was created to address the legal steps to be taken in response to the foregoing, including filing lawsuits with the competent international bodies.

He also pointed out that the removal of the name of an internationally recognized state violates international laws and legislation, as well as the relevant UN resolutions.

A campaign was launched after Google and Apple’s removal of Palestine from their online maps.

More than one million users signed a petition demanding the two to expressly mention Palestine in their maps.

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Riad al-Malki, said the government is considering the necessary legal procedures to respond to Google and Apple's removal of the name of Palestine from their maps." They [Google and Apple] were certainly wrong when they dealt with Palestine with this intended political underestimation," said the Foreign Minister.

Al-Malki added that this will make it easy for the Palestinian government to prosecute officials of the two giants in the event they insisted on violating international law