RAMALLAH/DEIR AL-BALAH: Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and a central area of Gaza voted on Saturday in municipal elections, the first since the outbreak of the Gaza war, amid a narrow political field and widespread public disillusionment.
Nearly 1.5 million voters are registered in the West Bank, alongside about 70,000 in Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, according to the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission.
Polling stations opened at 7 am (0400 GMT), with AFP footage from Al-Bireh in the West Bank and Deir al-Balah showing voters casting ballots under subdued conditions.
Most electoral lists are aligned with the nationalist Fatah movement led by Mahmud Abbas, or are running as independents.
No lists affiliated with Hamas — which governs much of the Gaza Strip — are contesting the vote.
In several municipalities, Fatah-backed lists are competing against independent tickets that include candidates linked to factions such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Mahmud Bader, a businessman from the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem, where two adjacent refugee camps have been under Israeli military control for over a year, said he would vote despite limited expectations.
“Whether candidates are independent or partisan, it has no effect and will have no effect or benefit for the city,” he told AFP.
“The (Israeli) occupation is the one that rules Tulkarem. It would only be an image shown to the international media, as if we have elections, a state, or independence.”
In many cities, including Nablus and Ramallah — the administrative seat of the Palestinian Authority — only one list has been submitted, meaning candidates are elected unopposed.
Polling stations in the West Bank are due to close at 7 pm, while voting in Deir al-Balah will end at 5 pm to allow daylight counting amid severe electricity shortages in the war-affected enclave.
UN coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov commended the commission for organising a “credible process”.
“Saturday’s elections represent an important opportunity for Palestinians to exercise their democratic rights during an exceptionally challenging period,” he said in a statement ahead of the vote.
Limited Scope, Symbolic Weight
Gaza, under Hamas control since 2007, is witnessing its first vote since the 2006 legislative elections won by the Islamist movement.
The Palestinian Authority has restricted voting in Gaza to Deir al-Balah, in what analysts describe as a limited test.
Jamal al-Fadi, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University, said the move was “an experiment (to test its own) success or failure, since there are no post-war opinion polls”.
Abbas, now 90, has remained in power for more than two decades without fresh presidential elections, despite repeated pledges to hold them.
Deir al-Balah was selected because much of its population has remained in place, avoiding the large-scale displacement seen elsewhere in Gaza during more than two years of conflict between Israel and Hamas, Fadi said.
Farah Shaath, 25, expressed a sense of symbolic participation.
“Although it is unlike any election in the world, it is a confirmation of our continued existence in the Gaza Strip despite everything,” she said.
The elections commission said it recruited staff from civil society groups and hired a private security firm to secure polling centres in Gaza.
