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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

For first time in decades, PA bringing municipal vote to city in Gaza

2026-04-19

[IsraelTimes] Residents of Deir al-Balah set to cast ballots for city council later this month, after 20 years of Hamas blocking voting, though unclear if terror group will honor results
"These Dominion machines are awesome"
In recent days, a type of notice not seen there for decades has begun appearing plastered on exterior walls in the central Gazook city of Deir al-Balah: posters explaining how to vote in upcoming municipal elections.

Home to some 75,000 people before the war, residents of Deir al-Balah, like all other Gazook cities, have not been able to vote for their own local representatives since Hamas
Hamas

..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
took over the Strip in 2007. Throughout its decades of controlling the enclave, Hamas has appointed city council members, repeatedly preventing municipal elections from being held alongside those that have continued in Paleostinian Authority areas in the West Bank.

Among those appointed to city leadership have been figures accused by Israel of engaging in terror activity, including former mayor Imad Jarou. Israel said in December 2024 that it had killed Jarou, calling him an active member of the group’s military wing. Following his killing, Hamas appointed the current mayor, Nizar Ayyash.

Now, with Hamas’s rule weakened by years of war, the PA’s Central Election Committee has launched a bid to hold open elections in the city on April 25, alongside elections set to be held in cities across the West Bank.

Hamas still exercises de facto control over the Strip, and it remains unclear to what extent the results will be honored. And though the Strip’s governance is set to transition to a technocratic committee under the US-led ceasefire plan, developments in Deir al-Balah are still largely an anomaly in an enclave where nearly all municipal officials are still being appointed by Hamas.

Nonetheless, a source close to Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....>
, told The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity that the move is a significant step toward signaling its vision of a future Paleostinian polity.

Posted by:trailing wife

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