Palestinians are voting in local elections on Saturday, including the first poll of any kind to be held in Gaza since 2006.
Elections are taking place across the occupied West Bank, as well as in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza where Hamas operates.
Hamas was not allowed to stand and several other factions have boycotted it over a requirement that candidates recognise the authority of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), which dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA) governing the parts of the occupied West Bank not under Israeli control.
Fatah, the faction led by President Mahmoud Abbas and which dominates the PLO, was violently ousted from Gaza after the last elections there, which Hamas won triggering a power struggle between the two groups.
More than a million voters across the Palestinian territories are eligible to take part, according to the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission, including 70,000 in Deir al-Balah, where 12 polling stations were scheduled to operate. Results are expected late on Saturday or on Sunday.
While Hamas was not on the ballot in Deir al-Balah, Reuters news agency reported that one slate of candidates was widely seen as being aligned with it.
The central city was chosen as the sole Gaza area where elections would take place as it was not as badly damaged as other places during the Israel-Hamas war. A fragile ceasefire is in place as part of President Trump's 20-point peace plan, which halted the fighting in October last year.
Hamas continues to operate in parts of Gaza where Israeli forces have withdrawn from, and Reuters reported that its police force was involved in security operations around polling stations.
The group's popularity has fallen in Gaza because of the war, which some Gazans partially blame on Hamas for launching its attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, triggering Israeli military retaliation.
But it has surged in the West Bank where there is widespread disillusionment with the PA run by Abbas and his Fatah party. The PA is seen by many Palestinians as corrupt and ineffective and having failed to improve the economic lives of ordinary people or end Israel's decades-long military occupation.
With Fatah the only major faction on the ballot across the Palestinian territories – and guaranteed victory in some districts because no opposition candidates are running – these elections are a reminder of the continued lack of unity among the two main Palestinian factions.
The field narrowed after several groups objected to an election law which set the conditions under which candidates would be permitted to stand.
It said candidates could only run if they committed to recognising "the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, its political and national programme, and the relevant decisions of international legitimacy".
The PLO-dominated PA has formally claimed to be the legitimate government in Gaza despite exercising no effective control there.
Hamas and several other Palestinian factions oppose the PLO, including over its recognition of Israel.
Local elections have not been held in the West Bank since 2022, while the last poll of any kind in Gaza was two decades ago.
Hamas replaced Fatah as the largest Palestinian faction in the 2006 legislative council election, a result which raised tensions between the rivals and preceded violent clashes.
Fatah was forcibly ousted from Gaza the following year by Hamas, cementing a political divide between the territory and the occupied West Bank.
Earlier this week the United Nations deputy special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Dr Ramiz Alakbarov, said the elections "represent an important opportunity for Palestinians to exercise their democratic rights during an exceptionally challenging period".
Speaking after voting in Deir al-Balah, Mohammed al-Hasayna told AFP that the election served as a sign of people's "will to live".
"We want the world to help us overcome the catastrophe of war. Enough wars – it is time to work towards rebuilding Gaza," he said.
In the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem, businessman Mahmud Bader told AFP he had little hope for meaningful change.
"The [Israeli] occupation is the one that rules Tulkarem. It would only be an image shown to the international media – as if we have elections, a state or independence," he said.
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