Gaza Votes in First Local Election in Over 20 Years

Palestinians in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah voted on Saturday in the first municipal election held inside the Gaza Strip in more than 20 years, while in the West Bank around 1.5 million voters cast ballots in the first local elections there since the war began on October 7, 2023.

Deir al-Balah Pilot

According to Al Jazeera, CNN, the Washington Post, PBS NewsHour and the Times of Israel, polling stations in Deir al-Balah opened at 7 a.m. local time and closed at 5 p.m. to allow daylight counting due to a lack of electricity. Roughly 70,000 voters were eligible to cast ballots in the first electoral exercise inside the Gaza Strip in 20 years. The last Palestinian vote was the 2006 legislative election, before Hamas's 2007 takeover of Gaza.

Officials described the vote as a "pilot." The Central Elections Commission was unable to send ballot papers, ballot boxes or ink directly into Gaza and had to work around Israeli controls, according to Al Jazeera.

Four Lists, Four Women Each

Four nominally independent candidate lists competed in Deir al-Balah, named Peace and Construction, Deir al-Balah Brings Us Together, Future of Deir al-Balah and Renaissance of Deir al-Balah. Each list fielded 15 candidates, including at least four women, per the Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post.

Most lists were backed by President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement. Hamas did not officially participate. Deir al-Balah was selected because most of its population stayed in place during the war, and the city is one of the few areas not destroyed by Israeli military operations.

West Bank Concurrent Vote

In the West Bank, around 1.5 million Palestinians registered to vote in concurrent local elections, the first held in the territory since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, 2023, per RTÉ and PBS NewsHour.

The vote is symbolically charged, taking place 20 years after the last Palestinian election. It marks a tentative effort by the Palestinian Authority to rebuild civic governance in a Gaza Strip that has been largely destroyed.