Deir al-Balah
Palestinians are voting in local elections on Saturday, including the first poll of any kind to be held in Gaza since 2006.
Elections are taking place across the occupied West Bank, as well as in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza where Hamas operates.
Hamas was not allowed to stand and several other factions have boycotted it over a requirement that candidates recognise the authority of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), which dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA) governing the parts of the occupied West Bank not under Israeli control.
Fatah, the faction led by President Mahmoud Abbas and which dominates the PLO, was violently ousted from Gaza after the last elections there, which Hamas won triggering a power struggle between the two groups.
More than a million voters across the Palestinian territories are eligible to take part, according to the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission, including 70,000 in Deir al-Balah, where 12 polling stations were scheduled to operate.
Results are expected late on Saturday or on Sunday.
While Hamas was not on the ballot in Deir al-Balah, Reuters news agency reported that one slate of candidates was widely seen as being aligned with it.
The central city was chosen as the sole Gaza area where elections would take place as it was not as badly damaged as other places during the Israel-Hamas war. A fragile ceasefire is in place as part of President Trump’s 20-point peace plan, which halted the fighting in October last year.
Hamas continues to operate in parts of Gaza where Israeli forces have withdrawn from, and Reuters reported that its police force was involved in security operations around polling stations.
The group’s popularity has fallen in Gaza because of the war, which some Gazans partially blame on Hamas for launching its attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, triggering Israeli military retaliation.
But it has surged in the West Bank where there is widespread disillusionment with the PA run by Abbas and his Fatah party. The PA is seen by many Palestinians as corrupt and ineffective and having failed to improve the economic lives of ordinary people or end Israel’s decades-long military occupation.
