Palestinians in the West Bank and a central part of Gaza Strip headed to the polls on Saturday for municipal elections, marking the first such vote since the Gaza war, amid limited political competition and growing public frustration.
Data from the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission shows that close to 1.5 million voters are registered in the West Bank, alongside about 70,000 eligible voters in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah area.
Voting commenced at 7 am (0400 GMT), with AFP footage from Al-Bireh in the West Bank and Deir el-Balah in Gaza capturing election officials at polling centres as residents arrived to cast their ballots.
The majority of electoral lists are either affiliated with President Mahmud Abbas’s secular-nationalist Fatah movement or consist of independent candidates.
Notably, no candidate lists linked to Hamas—Fatah’s main rival and the governing authority in much of Gaza—are participating in the vote.
Across many municipalities, Fatah-supported candidates are contesting against independent lists, some of which are led by figures associated with factions like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist-Leninist group.
Mahmud Bader, a businessman from Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, where nearby refugee camps have been under prolonged Israeli military presence, said he intended to vote despite limited expectations for change.
“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 several major cities, including Nablus and Ramallah, only a single electoral list was submitted, resulting in automatic victories without voting.
According to the elections commission, polling stations in the West Bank are scheduled to close at 7 pm, while voting in Deir el-Balah will end earlier at 5 pm to allow daylight counting due to ongoing electricity shortages in the war-affected enclave.
Ramiz Alakbarov, a United Nations coordinator, praised the organisation of the elections, describing the process as credible.
“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.
Gaza, under Hamas administration since 2007, is witnessing its first election since the 2006 legislative polls won by the Islamist group.
Political analyst Jamal al-Fadi of Al-Azhar University in Cairo said the Palestinian Authority’s decision to hold voting in Deir el-Balah serves as a test of its post-war standing, noting the absence of reliable opinion polls.
Abbas, now 90 years old, has governed for over two decades without re-election, despite repeated assurances that legislative and presidential elections would be held.
Deir el-Balah was selected as a voting location because it remains one of the few areas in Gaza where residents have largely avoided displacement during more than two years of conflict between Hamas and Israel, Fadi explained.
For some voters, the exercise carries symbolic significance. Farah Shaath, 25, expressed enthusiasm about participating in her first election.
“Although it is unlike any election in the world, it is a confirmation of our continued existence in the Gaza Strip despite everything,” she told AFP.
The elections commission stated that it enlisted staff from civil society groups and contracted a private security firm to oversee polling stations in Gaza, according to spokesman Fareed Taamallah.
However, an anonymous commission source in Gaza indicated that Hamas authorities insisted on playing a role in securing the process in Deir el-Balah.
The source added that “this will be done by deploying unarmed security personnel in civilian clothing around polling centres”, which total 12 in the area.
