Hamas Rejects PA’s Call For Palestinian Local Elections Set for December

A Palestinian member of Central Elections Commission displays an information leaflet following the opening of the first Voter Information and Registration Centre in Gaza City on February 10, 2021. (Mohammed Abed/AFP)
A Palestinian member of Central Elections Commission displays an information leaflet following the opening of the first Voter Information and Registration Centre in Gaza City on February 10, 2021. (Mohammed Abed/AFP)
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Hamas Rejects PA’s Call For Palestinian Local Elections Set for December

A Palestinian member of Central Elections Commission displays an information leaflet following the opening of the first Voter Information and Registration Centre in Gaza City on February 10, 2021. (Mohammed Abed/AFP)
A Palestinian member of Central Elections Commission displays an information leaflet following the opening of the first Voter Information and Registration Centre in Gaza City on February 10, 2021. (Mohammed Abed/AFP)

Palestinian militant group Hamas said Wednesday it would not participate in municipal elections set by the Palestinian Authority for December unless a general election is also called.

Hamas is a long-standing rival of the PA, based in the occupied West Bank, and had supported the decision to hold Palestinian legislative and presidential elections in May and July.

But president Mahmoud Abbas in April indefinitely postponed those votes, which would have been the first Palestinian elections in 15 years.

Abbas cited Israel’s refusal to guarantee voting in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as their future capital, AFP reported.

But Palestinian experts said Abbas balked out of fear that Hamas would sweep the polls, in a repeat of 2006 results that the president’s Fatah movement did not accept.

Hamas, which was furious by Abbas’s general election postponement, said Wednesday that it “would not be part of... fragmented municipal elections.”

“The right solution is to hold comprehensive elections” for the Palestinian presidency, Palestinian legislative council, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), municipal bodies and trade and student unions, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told reporters.

Those votes could happen “simultaneously or according to a nationally agreed timetable,” he said.

“If that is plan, we are ready to participate.”

The municipal elections called by the PA would take place in 387 localities throughout the West Bank and Gaza on December 11, and then in 90 other places at a later date that has yet to be set.

Of the 477 voting sites, just 11 were in Gaza.

Hamas’s rejection of the process would make voting impossible in Gaza, an Israeli-blockaded territory controlled by the Islamists since 2007.

Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union but is seeking to bolster its legitimacy through election wins and by joining the PLO, a group of Palestinians factions recognized by Israel and the international community.



UN Rapporteur Calls for Global Action to Stop ‘Genocide’ in Gaza

 UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese speaks during a press conference following an Emergency Conference of States, hosted by Colombia and South Africa, to discuss measures against Israel in relation to the conflict in Gaza, in Bogota, Colombia, July 15, 2025. (Reuters)
UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese speaks during a press conference following an Emergency Conference of States, hosted by Colombia and South Africa, to discuss measures against Israel in relation to the conflict in Gaza, in Bogota, Colombia, July 15, 2025. (Reuters)
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UN Rapporteur Calls for Global Action to Stop ‘Genocide’ in Gaza

 UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese speaks during a press conference following an Emergency Conference of States, hosted by Colombia and South Africa, to discuss measures against Israel in relation to the conflict in Gaza, in Bogota, Colombia, July 15, 2025. (Reuters)
UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese speaks during a press conference following an Emergency Conference of States, hosted by Colombia and South Africa, to discuss measures against Israel in relation to the conflict in Gaza, in Bogota, Colombia, July 15, 2025. (Reuters)

The United Nations’ special rapporteur for Gaza and the West Bank said Tuesday that it's time for nations around the world to take concrete actions to stop what she called the “genocide” in Gaza.

Francesca Albanese spoke to delegates from 30 countries meeting in Colombia’s capital to discuss the Israel-Hamas war and ways that nations can try to stop Israel’s military offensive in the territory. Many of the participating nations have described the violence as genocide against the Palestinians.

“Each state must immediately review and suspend all ties with the State of Israel ... and ensure its private sector does the same,” Albanese said. “The Israeli economy is structured to sustain the occupation that has now turned genocidal.”

The two-day conference organized by the governments of Colombia and South Africa is being attended mostly by developing nations, although the governments of Spain, Ireland and China have also sent delegates.

Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has adamantly rejected genocide allegations against it as an antisemitic “blood libel.”

Analysts say it’s not clear whether the conference's participating countries have enough leverage over Israel to force it to change its policies in Gaza, where more than 58,000 people have been killed in Israeli military operations following a deadly Hamas attack on Israel in 2023. The death toll comes from the health ministry, which is under Gaza’s Hamas government and does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. The UN and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.

“The United States has so far failed to influence Israel’s behavior ... so it is naive to think that this group of countries can have any influence over (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s behavior or on the government of Israel,” said Sandra Borda, a professor of international relations at Bogota’s Los Andes University.

She said, however, that the conference will enable some nations of the Global South to clarify their position toward the conflict and have their voices heard.

The conference is co-chaired by the governments of South Africa and Colombia, which last year suspended coal exports to Israeli power plants, and includes the participation of members of The Hague Group, a coalition of eight nations that earlier this year pledged to cut military ties with Israel and to comply with an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Netanyahu.

For decades, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party has compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank with its own history of oppression under the harsh apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most Blacks to “homelands” before ending in 1994.

South Africa’s current argument is rooted in the sentiment that Palestinians have been oppressed in their homeland as Black South Africans were under apartheid.

The gathering comes as the European Union weighs various measures against Israel that include a ban on imports from Israeli settlements, an arms embargo and individual sanctions against Israeli officials, who are found to be blocking a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Colombia’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Mauricio Jaramillo said Monday that the nations participating in the Bogota meeting, which also include Qatar and Türkiye, will be discussing diplomatic and judicial measures that can be taken to put more pressure on Israel to cease its attacks.

The Colombian official described Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as an affront to the international order.

“This is not just about Palestine” Jaramillo said in a press conference. “It is about defending international law... and the right to self-determination.”