A Palestinian man shows his marked finger after casting his ballot at a polling station during municipal elections in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Al-Bireh on April 25, 2026. (Credit: Zain Jaafar/AFP)

In the Palestinian West Bank and in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, symbolic municipal elections held

The ruling Fatah party had previously largely locked down the election through decrees and even intimidation. This was not enough, however, to restore legitimacy to Palestinian institutions.

26 Apr 2026, 18:26 by Laure-Maïssa FARJALLAH · L'Orient Today

This is the first election since the war on Gaza that followed the Oct. 7 Hamas-led operation on Israel. It is also the first nationally significant vote for Palestinians since 2006. While municipal elections have taken place in the Israeli-occupied West Bank over the past two decades, the people of Gaza have not gone to the polls since Hamas won power in the enclave in the last parliamentary elections. On Saturday, April 25, more than a million Palestinians were called to vote in municipal elections covering 183 communities, while nearly 200 municipalities saw the only slate win by default, as in Ramallah and Nablus. In Gaza, only Deir al-Balah and its approximately 70,000 eligible voters were involved, as a test, due to the city's relatively lower levels of destruction and displacement during the war compared to other parts of the...

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