AFP, Ramallah

Palestinians in the West Bank and central Gaza voted yesterday in municipal elections, the first since the war in Gaza erupted, with low early turnout and a limited political field.

Nearly 1.5 million people are registered to vote in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as 70,000 people in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah area, according to the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission. Deir el‑Balah was chosen as it is one of the few areas where the population has not been massively displaced, he said.

Early AFP footage from Al-Bireh in the West Bank and Deir el-Balah showed voters trickling into the polling stations.

An AFP journalist reported near‑empty stations across parts of the West Bank, even as foreign diplomats made their rounds to observe the process.

Most electoral lists are aligned with President Mahmud Abbas’s secular-nationalist Fatah movement or are composed of independents.

Hamas, Fatah’s bitter rival and the ruling power in Gaza, is absent from the race.

In many municipalities, Fatah‑backed lists face off against independents supported by smaller factions such as the Marxist‑Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Municipal councils oversee water, sanitation, and local infrastructure but do not enact legislation.

Still, with presidential or legislative elections frozen since 2006, councils have become one of the last remaining democratic mechanisms under the Palestinian Authority.

The PA faces widespread criticism over corruption, stagnation and declining legitimacy. Western and regional donors have increasingly tied financial and diplomatic support for the PA to visible reform, particularly in local governance.

Polling in the West Bank ends at 7:00pm. In Deir el-Balah, stations close at 5:00pm to facilitate counting in daylight because of the lack of electricity in the war-devastated strip, the elections commission told AFP.

Two years of war that started in October 2023 have left swathes of Gaza destroyed and more than 72,000 people

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