Voting in the municipal elections began on Saturday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and part of the Palestinian Gaza Strip. Polling stations in the West Bank and in the Deir al-Balah area in the central part of the Gaza Strip opened at 07:00 local time (06:00 CEST), the AFP agency reported.
- Municipal elections are held in the West Bank and Gaza.
- Approximately 70,000 people can vote in Deir al-Balah.
- Hamas is not officially leading the elections, but it can monitor its popularity.
- Polls show that Hamas is still popular among Palestinians.
- The elections are supposed to symbolize the unity of the future Palestinian state.
According to the spokesman of the election commission of the Palestinian Authority, approximately 70,000 Palestinians can vote in Deir al-Balah. The city was chosen for the election because it suffered less damage in the war with Israel than the rest of the Gaza Strip, which is largely destroyed.
Voters can choose candidates from four candidate lists, one of which includes several figures considered by residents and observers to be close to the Palestinian radical movement Hamas.
Some parties are boycotting the elections
Hamas has not drawn up its own list of candidates and does not officially support any candidate. He claims this is because the Palestinian Authority regulation requires candidates to recognize the state of Israel. Some other parties and movements are boycotting the election, which could allow Fatah to win fairly easily in major West Bank cities.
Although Hamas is officially on the sidelines, according to West Bank analyst Hani al-Masri, Hamas may interpret the results as an indicator of its popularity – especially according to the results achieved by candidates close to it. Hamas declared through its spokesman Hazim Qasim that it will respect the results of the elections. Sources from the movement also told Reuters that Hamas would deploy police and security forces to secure polling stations.
Hamas took control of Deir al-Balah and other parts of the Gaza Strip when the Israeli army withdrew from them under a ceasefire signed in October 2025. However, Israel continues to maintain control over more than 53 percent of the territory.
It is still popular
According to public opinion polls, Hamas remains popular in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank despite the damage caused by the war with Israel. An October 2025 study by the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Surveys in the Gaza Strip found that Hamas has the support of 41 percent of Palestinians, while Fatah has the support of 29 percent.
The AFP agency also notes that at a time when the peace process initiated by US President Donald Trump is deadlocked, Saturday’s municipal elections appear to be an indicator of the popularity of the Palestinian radical movement Hamas, which still controls half of the Gaza Strip and refuses to disarm. Trump’s plan is seen by many Palestinians as a prelude to separating the enclave from the West Bank.
These are the first elections in the Gaza Strip since 2006 and the victory of Hamas over the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the parliamentary elections. This victory led to a brief civil war: an Islamist movement emerged victorious, which subsequently took control of the Palestinian coastal enclave. However, the Gaza Strip has experienced five wars during this period. The last one, which followed the massacre in the south of Israel on October 7, 2023, claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians and devastated practically the entire territory of the Gaza Strip.
Reuters reminded that this is the fifth municipal election in the West Bank since 2005. The Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, declared in January that it would try to hold these elections “wherever possible”, an initiative seen as a symbolic gesture to demonstrate that the Gaza Strip must be an integral part of the future Palestinian state.
