Palestinians vote in municipal elections in Gaza, West Bank

Municipal elections are being held on Saturday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Deir el-Balah area of the Gaza Strip, the first vote in the Palestinian territories since the war in Gaza.

In the West Bank, nearly 1.5 million people are registered to vote, while in Gaza, there are 70,000 eligible voters, according to the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission.

Gaza has not held elections since a 2006 legislative vote won by the Islamist group Hamas, which violently seized control of the enclave from the Palestinian Authority, led by its rival Fatah, a year later.

The West Bank has not held a vote since before the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023.

Who are the candidates in the Palestinian elections?

Most electoral lists in the elections are aligned with President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah, a secular-nationalist party, or running as independents.

There are no lists affiliated with Hamas, which still controls the nearly half of the Gaza Strip that is not occupied by Israeli military forces. 

However, polling from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research has shown that it is still the most popular Palestinian faction in both Gaza and the West Bank.

In many West Bank cities, including Nablus and Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority that the 90-year-old Abbas leads, only one list has been submitted, meaning it wins automatically without needing a vote.

 The vote in the West Bank will elect members of the local councils that supervise water, roads and electricity but which do not enact legislation.

The vote in Gaza is being seen as largely symbolic. It is being held only in Deir al-Balah as one of the few areas in the enclave not to have experienced an Israeli ground invasion.

The Palestinian Authority also hopes the election there will help reinforce its claim to authority over the territory after its ouster by Hamas ⁠in 2007. It has, however, faced allegations of widespread corruption.

Two years of war that started in October 2023, after Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel that left some 1,200 people dead, have destroyed huge swaths of Gaza and killed more than 72,000 people, according to the territory's Health Ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN and other international organizations. 

Public infrastructure, sanitation services and the health sector are struggling to function.

UN deems elections 'credible'

UN coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov commended the commission for organizing a "credible process."

"Saturday's elections represent an important opportunity for Palestinians to exercise their democratic rights during an exceptionally challenging period," Alakbarov said in a statement ahead of polls.

Voting "reflects the will of the Palestinian people to stay on their land and develop their country," Fareed Taamallah, a spokesperson for the Elections Commission, said.

He said, "The main idea is to link the West Bank and Gaza politically as one system.”

Palestinians see uniting the two territories under one government as a vital element in any attempt to acheive future statehood.

Although Israel's government is opposed to the idea, European and ‌Arab governments broadly support an eventual return of the Palestinian Authority to rule Gaza, along with an independent Palestinian state. 

Taamallah said the commission had not coordinated directly with either Israel or Hamas in organizing the vote in Gaza. Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, Germany and several other countries. 

COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees humanitarian affairs in Gaza, did not respond to questions about whether it would allow election materials in.

Polling stations in the West Bank will close at 7 p.m. (1600 GMT), while polls in Deir al-Balah will close at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) owing to a lack of electricity in the war-ravaged area.

Edited by. Sean Sinico