Birzeit's telephone connection to the outside world

Birzeit University is located in the Palestinian West Bank, about 26 km north of Jerusalem, after (if you are travelling north) the Palestinian city of Ramallah and just before the village of Birzeit.

The main telephone exchange for the (02) area code is in Jerusalem, with a sub exchange in Ramallah, that services the surrounding area including Birzeit University.

Several times in 1996, people stole some of the telephone cables between the university and Ramallah, as there is a booming trade in the copper wire inside, used in the production of gold jewellery. Therefore fax and telephone contact with the university was lost during the time before the cables are repaired, the last occasion resulting in a two-week silence in June 1996. E-mail used to suffer as well, but emergency measures usually ensured it began to get through at least once a day after about the second day after the cables are taken.

The university found a solution to this problem, by installing a microwave link between the campus and Ramallah, connecting via a second microwave link to a leased line in Jerusalem. The good news is that both the webserver and e-mail is no longer affected by these events, which seemed to have tailed off.

What to do if you cannot contact Birzeit by telephone or fax and you need to contact us urgently?

1. USE E-MAIL - E-mail sometimes bounces.
   
   • If you are not sure you have the right e-mail address, send your message to pr@admin.birzeit.edu where it will be forwarded manually, or electronically if the person you wish to contact does not have an e-mail account.
   • If you are sure the e-mail address is correct and the message is urgent, try phoning Birzeit's main fax briefly +972-2-295-7656 to see if there is a noise. If there is, the lines are fine and try to resend your message.
   • If this doesn't work, fax a message to the Board of Trustees Building (see second bullet point under 2 below).
   
   
   
2. FAXING OR PHONING - The main university fax and direct telephone numbers are sometimes busy.
   
   • Check you have the right fax or telephone number. The main university switchboard and fax numbers can be found on our homepage if you are not sure of the numbers you have. If you have a direct number for a person at Birzeit, try phoning the switchboard (40 lines) instead, and asking to be put through.
   • If the above suggestions don't work, feel free to fax your message to the Birzeit University Board of Trustees Building in Ramallah (+972-2-295-4383). Unfortunately the Board of Trustees building cannot answer telephone enquiries.