Postage stamps and postal history of the Palestinian National Authority

The Palestinian National Authority began in 1994 to issue stamps and operate postal services as authorized by the Oslo Accords.

Starting in 1994–95, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) established post offices throughout the PNA, developed its own unique postmarks and issued stamps. In its first decade, the PNA expanded from 49 to 82 post offices (1994–2004). It provides a range of mailing services and issued its first stamp booklets in 2000.

In 1999, the PNA and Israel agreed that PNA mail could be sent directly to Egypt and Jordan. Earlier, the PNA had claimed that Israel had violated its agreements regarding postal service by impeding mail to Egypt and Jordan. When mail addressed to Arab countries could not be delivered, it was marked with a "no service" cachet because it could not be forwarded. The lack of forwarding has been due apparently to Israeli policy and the Arab boycott. At times, The PNA's Ministry of Telecom & Information Technology issued a critical report on postal services in areas under Israeli control. In 2002, the minister of PNA Post and Telecommunications, Imad al-Faluji, claimed that Israel had destroyed its post offices in Gaza.

The PNA does not have so far postcodes or addressing rules that would help automate and improve delivery services. A project to develop such a system started in 2010 with preliminary codes and a map being published in January 2011.

The PNA is authorized to manage postal operations, issue stamps and postal stationery, and set rates, under agreements signed between Israel and the PNA following the Oslo Accords. The agreements specifically regulate the wording that can be used on the stamps issued, specifying that they "shall include only the terms 'the Palestinian Council' or 'the Palestinian Authority.'"

The first PNA stamps, printed by German state printer Bundesdruckerei Berlin, used the currency designation mils (which was the currency of the British Mandate of Palestine between 1927 and 1948). Israel protested over this issue, and all early stamps issued in 1994 had to be overprinted with fils (1/1000 of a Jordanian dinar), as illustrated by the souvenir sheet shown. A Palestinian newspaper, The Jerusalem Times, broke the story of the mils mistake on the stamps.

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