Voter turnout in Gaza remained low due to the ongoing impact of the massacre.
Published on 26 April 2026
Loyalists of President Mahmoud Abbas won the majority of races in Palestinian municipal elections, election officials said, in a vote that included one city in the besieged Gaza Strip for the first time in nearly two decades.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said when the results were announced on Sunday that the elections were held “at an extremely sensitive moment amid complex challenges and extraordinary circumstances”.
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Saturday’s vote marked the first elections of any kind in Gaza since 2006, and the first Palestinian elections since Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory in October 2023.
Palestinian Authority officials said the vote in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, was a largely symbolic “pilot” election, intended to show that Gaza was an inseparable part of a future Palestinian state.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, did not formally nominate candidates in Gaza and boycotted the race in the occupied West Bank, where Fatah was widely expected to win.
But some candidates on one of the Deir al-Balah lists were widely seen by residents and analysts as aligned with the movement, making the vote a possible indicator of support for the group.
Preliminary results showed that the list known as Deir al-Balah Brings Us Together won only two of the 15 seats contested in Gaza.
Abbas’s Fatah party and the Nahdat Deir al-Balah list, backed by the Palestinian Authority, won six seats. The remaining seats were won by two other Gaza-based groups, Future of Deir al-Balah and Peace and Building, which were not affiliated with either faction.
Meanwhile, Abbas loyalists won several seats in the West Bank, contesting them unopposed.
Low turnout in Gaza
Fatah spokesman Abdul Fattah Dawla said voting was close for the last municipal elections in the West Bank in 2022, praising voters for taking part despite continued violence by Israel.
According to Rami Hamdalla, chairman of the Central Election Commission, turnout in Gaza was 23 percent, while in the occupied West Bank it was 56 percent.
Meanwhile, some ballot boxes and voting equipment could not get into the enclave due to Israeli sanctions.
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Gaza City, said, “It’s very clear how the Israeli military is still imposing a lot of restrictions on everything entering the Gaza Strip.”
Voter turnout in Gaza was low, he said, because of the outdated population data registry due to the genocide, while the remaining population is displaced, with people homeless on the streets, “busy surviving”.
Israel’s devastating war has reduced much of Gaza to ruins. Despite a “cease-fire” imposed in October, Israeli forces have continued attacks.
Despite this, a resident of Deir al-Balah said he came out to vote because it was his “right”.
“I came to vote because I have the right to elect municipal council members so that they can provide services to us,” Ashraf Abu Dan told the Associated Press news agency.
