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Palestinians Approve 36 Candidate Groups to Run in May Vote

A picture taken with a drone shows the exterior of the Palestinian Legislative Council, in Gaza City March 30, 2021. Picture taken March 30, 2021. (Reuters)
A picture taken with a drone shows the exterior of the Palestinian Legislative Council, in Gaza City March 30, 2021. Picture taken March 30, 2021. (Reuters)
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Palestinians Approve 36 Candidate Groups to Run in May Vote

A picture taken with a drone shows the exterior of the Palestinian Legislative Council, in Gaza City March 30, 2021. Picture taken March 30, 2021. (Reuters)
A picture taken with a drone shows the exterior of the Palestinian Legislative Council, in Gaza City March 30, 2021. Picture taken March 30, 2021. (Reuters)

Palestinian election officials announced Sunday that 36 candidate lists had been approved to run in legislative elections set for next month, the first Palestinian polls in 15 years.

The vote, which precedes a presidential election called for July 31, is part of an effort by the dominant Palestinian movements -- Fatah secularists and Hamas Islamists -- to boost international support for Palestinian governance, AFP reported.

Groups had until Wednesday to submit their lists of candidates to contest in the May 22 legislative polls.

Individual names on each list are due to be published Tuesday, but the Palestinian electoral commission announced on its website that it had approved all 36 applications.

President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, which controls the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is contesting the polls, as is Hamas, which has run the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip since 2007.

Fatah is facing challenges from dissident factions including the Freedom list, led by a nephew of the late Palestinian icon Yasser Arafat, Nasser al-Kidwa.

Freedom has been endorsed by Marwan Barghouti, a popular leader whom supporters have described as the Palestinian Mandela.

Barghouti is serving multiple life sentences in Israel for allegedly organizing deadly attacks during the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) from 2000-2005.

Abbas’s former Gaza security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, is also backing a list of challengers.

Former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, an ex-World Bank official with a track record of fighting corruption, is supporting another.

While Fatah and Hamas have reached an agreement for voting to take place in the West Bank and Gaza, the ability of Palestinians in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem to vote remains uncertain.

Israel bans all Palestinian political activity in Jerusalem, but Palestinian leaders insist voting be held in the city’s east, which they claim as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

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UN Says Can Only Deliver as Much Aid to Gaza as Conditions Allow

Palestinians walk among the rubble of houses destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, amid ceasefire negotiations with Israel, in Gaza City, January 15, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians walk among the rubble of houses destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, amid ceasefire negotiations with Israel, in Gaza City, January 15, 2025. (Reuters)
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UN Says Can Only Deliver as Much Aid to Gaza as Conditions Allow

Palestinians walk among the rubble of houses destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, amid ceasefire negotiations with Israel, in Gaza City, January 15, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians walk among the rubble of houses destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, amid ceasefire negotiations with Israel, in Gaza City, January 15, 2025. (Reuters)

A short-term surge of aid deliveries into Gaza after a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group will be difficult if the deal does not cover security arrangements in the enclave, a senior UN official said on Wednesday.

Negotiators reached a deal on Wednesday for a ceasefire, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters, after 15 months of conflict. It would include a significant increase of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, but it was unclear if any agreement would cover security arrangements.

"Security is not (the responsibility of) the humanitarians. And it's a very chaotic environment. The risk is that with a vacuum it gets even more chaotic," a senior UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. "Short of any arrangement, it will be very difficult to surge deliveries in the short term."

The United Nations has long described its humanitarian operation as opportunistic - facing problems with Israel's military operation, access restrictions by Israel into and throughout Gaza and more recently looting by armed gangs.

"The UN is committed to delivering humanitarian assistance during the ceasefire, just as we were during the period of active hostilities," said Eri Kaneko, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"The removal of the various impediments the UN has been facing during the last year – which include restrictions on the entry of goods; the lack of safety and security; the breakdown of law and order; and the lack of fuel – is a must," she said.

The UN has been working with partners to develop a coordinated plan to scale up operations, Kaneko said.

600 TRUCKS A DAY

The ceasefire deal - according to the official briefed on talks - requires 600 truckloads of aid to be allowed into Gaza every day of the initial six-week ceasefire, including 50 carrying fuel. Half of the 600 aid trucks would be delivered to Gaza's north, where experts have warned famine is imminent.

"We are well-prepared, and you can count on us to continue to be ambitious and creative," said the UN official, speaking shortly before the deal was agreed. "But the issue is and will be the operating environment inside Gaza."

For more than a year, the UN has warned that famine looms over Gaza. Israel says there is no aid shortage - citing more than a million tons of deliveries. It accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which Hamas denies, instead blaming Israel for shortages.

"If the deal doesn't provide any agreement on security arrangements, it will be very difficult to surge assistance," said the official, adding that there would also be a risk that law and order would further deteriorate in the short term.

The United Nations said in June that it was Israel's responsibility - as the occupying power in the Gaza Strip - to restore public order and safety in the Palestinian territory so aid can be delivered.

Hamas came to power in Gaza in 2006 after Israeli soldiers and settlers withdrew in 2005, but the enclave is still deemed as Israeli-occupied territory by the United Nations. Israel controls access to Gaza.

The current war was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, more than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed, Israel has laid much of Gaza to waste and the enclave's prewar population of 2.3 million people has been displaced multiple times, aid agencies say.