Overview
- Saturday's municipal elections took place across parts of the West Bank and in Deir al-Balah in Gaza, marking the first ballot held in the enclave in more than two decades.
- The Central Elections Commission reported overall turnout at about 53% and roughly 22–23% in Deir al-Balah, with about 1.5 million registered voters in the West Bank and around 70,000 in the Gaza city.
- New candidate rules requiring adherence to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s political program effectively barred Hamas from running, though Hamas police guarded Gaza polling sites.
- Organizers in Gaza improvised after Israel blocked standard election supplies by using tents as polling places, wooden ballot boxes, and leftover blue ink from a vaccine drive, and they closed early due to limited electricity.
- Newly elected councils will handle water, electricity, roads, and schools, and in Deir al-Balah they will help manage scarce aid, which observers from the UN and EU view as a step toward governance reform even as low Gaza turnout and factional exclusion raise questions about legitimacy.