Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Loyalists of President Mahmoud Abbas won most races in Palestinian municipal elections, election officials said, in a vote that for the first time in nearly two decades included a city in the besieged Gaza Strip. … Saturday’s ballot marked the first elections of any kind in Gaza since 2006, and the first Palestinian polls since Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory began in October 2023. The vote in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah was a largely symbolic ‘pilot’ election, Palestinian Authority officials said, intended to show that Gaza was an inseparable part of a future [sic] Palestinian state. Hamas, which has governed Gaza since 2007, did not formally nominate candidates in Gaza and boycotted the race in the occupied West Bank, where Fatah’s victory was widely expected.” (04/26/26)