When the polling stations closed, voter turnout was 53.4 percent in the occupied West Bank – where over a million people were eligible to vote – and 22.7 percent in Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip, where 70,000 were allowed to vote, according to the election authority.
The election went smoothly. In the West Bank, it included local councils that oversee infrastructure for water, roads and electricity.
The Gaza vote is largely symbolic and seen as a test for possible future elections. It is the first since Hamas won the 2006 parliamentary election and violently seized control of the Gaza Strip the following year from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, which administers limited self-rule in the West Bank.
