The Palestinian election dilemma

At the beginning of October  2026, Israel refused to allow officials from the Palestinian Central Elections Commission and international election observers to enter Gaza to monitor preparations for the legislative elections. Israel continues to refuse such access in Jerusalem.

The Palestinian legislative elections scheduled for 28th November 2026 face a more complex situation than previous elections. The obstacle is no longer confined to Jerusalem, as it was during the 2006 elections and the attempted elections of 2021, but now extends to the Gaza Strip as well.

Gaza has around 1.24 million registered voters out of approximately three million Palestinian voters, a number that cannot be disregarded under any circumstances, quite apart from the overriding political consideration, which is as significant as the need to hold elections in Jerusalem.

The obstacles encountered during the 2021 attempt also remain, namely the occupying power’s refusal to allow elections to be held in Jerusalem or an international election observation mission to oversee them.

Equally important, the United States’ public position today does not appear supportive of Palestinian elections, in contrast to Washington’s welcoming and supportive stance towards the elections held in 1996 and 2006. Washington did not pressure Israel in 2021 to allow elections to take place in Jerusalem, and its position appears even more complicated today given the situation in Gaza. Do current conditions and political dynamics permit elections to be held in the occupied Palestinian territory?

The most significant challenges facing Palestinians seeking to hold legislative elections today lie in Israeli restrictions on movement and access, in enabling Palestinian and international teams responsible for organising and overseeing the elections to operate in Jerusalem and Gaza, and in guaranteeing that voters and candidates can participate in a democratic and fair electoral process encompassing the entire Palestinian territory.

READ: Israel refuses entry to Palestinian election commission to Gaza, Jerusalem

A comparison of the conditions that enabled elections to take place in 1996 and 2006 with those prevailing in 2021 and today may provide an answer to the question raised above. Foremost among these conditions was Israel’s willingness to allow elections to be held in Jerusalem and Gaza and international observer missions to be present to oversee them. Most important, however, was Washington’s determination to see Palestinian elections take place, by pressing the Israeli government to facilitate them.

The first Palestinian elections, held in 1996, took place under arrangements that had been negotiated and agreed between the Palestinian and Israeli sides before polling day. The Interim Agreement (Oslo II), signed on 28 September 1995, explicitly provided in its Protocol on Elections for the participation of Palestinians in Jerusalem in the electoral process and established a special mechanism allowing them to cast their ballots through Israeli post offices in the city. These arrangements governed Jerusalem’s participation in the elections held on 20th January 1996 and had been settled nearly four months beforehand.

As for international observation of the 1996 elections, the Interim Agreement assigned the European Union responsibility for coordinating international observer missions, for which it had already begun preparations. A dedicated European electoral unit was deployed on the ground around two months before polling day. The European role was not limited to observing the vote itself, but also included assistance in preparing for the electoral process and coordinating international involvement.

The situation surrounding the 2006 legislative elections differed from that of 1996 with regard to Jerusalem. Israel had not committed to reapplying the city’s previous voting arrangements when the electoral process was announced, using Hamas’s participation in the elections as a pretext. The Israeli government formally settled its position on 15th January 2006, only ten days before the elections of 25th January, agreeing to allow Palestinians in East Jerusalem to participate under the arrangements previously applied.

International observation of the 2006 elections did not face the same uncertainty that surrounded Jerusalem’s participation. As in the 1996 elections, preparations for international observation were made well in advance and on an institutional basis. The European Union began deploying its mission on 12th–13th December 2005, more than six weeks before the scheduled elections, establishing offices in Ramallah, Gaza and East Jerusalem and deploying observers. Nevertheless, voting arrangements in Jerusalem remained unresolved until the Israeli government decided to approve the participation of Palestinians in the city. It then explicitly permitted the presence and freedom of movement of international observers, enabling them to monitor the vote, including at the six post offices in Jerusalem.

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Despite Israel’s objection to Hamas’s participation in the 2006 elections, the elections were held in an international environment strongly supportive of their conduct. This support was embedded in an established international political framework, namely the work of the Middle East Quartet, comprising the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. Washington was among the most unequivocal advocates of holding the elections as scheduled. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the free and fair elections scheduled for 25th January as an essential step towards building a democratic Palestinian state, and, ahead of the vote, welcomed the Israeli government’s move towards allowing Palestinians in Jerusalem to participate under the previous arrangements.

The 2006 elections, like those of 1996, took place with broad US and international support for the Palestinian electoral process. In 1996, the elections were directly linked to the Oslo process and the building of Palestinian Authority institutions, and were supported by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and key Arab states as one of the steps towards implementing the interim agreements. This was accompanied by extensive international political and financial support.

The environment surrounding the call for Palestinian elections in 2021 differed from the experiences of 1996 and 2006, despite clear international support for resuming the democratic process after fifteen years without legislative elections. On Jerusalem, the Palestinians sought the reapplication of the arrangements based on the Oslo II Agreement and implemented in previous elections, but Israel gave no definitive answer on whether it would allow voting in East Jerusalem ahead of the legislative elections scheduled for 22nd    May. A similar impasse emerged over international observation. On 8th February that year, the European Union submitted a formal request to the Israeli Foreign Ministry for permission to send an exploratory mission in preparation for the deployment of election observers, but the request remained unanswered until late March. This stood in clear contrast to 1996 and 2006, when European observation missions had been deployed in advance and in coordination with Israel.

The US position may help explain the contrast between the attempted elections of 2021 and those held in 1996 and 2006. While the Biden administration supported the Palestinians’ exercise of their democratic rights, it refrained from publicly pressuring the Israeli government, with Washington making no explicit demand that Israel allows voting to take place in Jerusalem.

The US position on the current Palestinian elections appears even less visible than it was during previous efforts to hold Palestinian elections, with no official US statement having been issued on the elections.

The Trump administration is currently leading the transitional political and security arrangements for Gaza through the Board of Peace. One year since Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war took effect on 10th October 2025, the first phase has succeeded in securing an exchange of captives, but the ceasefire remains fragile and key elements of the agreement are still unfulfilled. Although Israeli forces initially withdrew to what became known as the “Yellow Line”, leaving around 53 per cent of the Gaza Strip under their control, they subsequently advanced gradually beyond that line, expanding that area to around two-thirds of the territory. In August, the International Crisis Group estimated the figure at approximately 65 to 70 per cent. The entry of food and other humanitarian supplies has also remained far below the level stipulated under those arrangements. Nor did Israelis attack on Gaza end with the ceasefire. As the first anniversary of the agreement approaches, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since it took effect.

READ: Palestinian Education Ministry says more than 90% of Gaza schools destroyed during three years of war

These shortcomings have become part of the impasse obstructing the transition to the second phase of Trump’s plan and the fifteen-point roadmap announced by the Board of Peace on 30th July, which linked the dismantling of Hamas’s military infrastructure to a phased Israeli withdrawal, the transfer of administration to the technocratic committee tasked with administering Gaza, and the deployment of the International Stabilisation Force and a new Palestinian police force.

The Palestinian factions accepted the roadmap, and in July Hamas dissolved its government emergency committee that had been administering the Gaza Strip. The head of the committee announced his resignation and said that civil servants were ready to work under the authority of the new committee established by the Board of Peace. Yet the members of that committee have so far been unable to enter Gaza and assume their responsibilities because of Israel’s refusal to allow them in. Israel has linked their entry into the Strip to the complete and unilateral disarmament of Hamas, rather than tying the process to its own gradual withdrawal from Gaza.

On the security track, Israel has also prevented the deployment of the International Stabilisation Force in Gaza. After agreeing in July to allow around 200 personnel, who were to help collect Hamas’s weapons, into the Strip, Israel reversed its position in August, insisting that there would be no reconstruction or substantive steps before Hamas was fully disarmed. Although the force is drawn from countries Israel considers “friendly”, Israel reserves the right to approve or veto their participation and any coordination with them, depending on political developments and considerations.

The US roadmap treats disarmament and Israeli withdrawal as gradual and interconnected processes, while Israel rejected the fifteen-point document and demanded complete disarmament before any withdrawal.

The International Crisis Group concluded that Israel had left the first phase incomplete, prevented the Palestinian administrative committee from beginning its work and imposed maximalist conditions on disarmament in order to obstruct the transition to the next phase. 

Washington has not used its influence to secure the entry of the committee it created, ensure implementation of the agreed withdrawal, or secure the deployment of the international force as envisaged in the plan. Instead, the Washington-led Board of Peace adjusted its position following Israeli objections, with its officials subsequently announcing that it would not ask Israel to withdraw before verified steps had been taken towards disarming Hamas. Against this backdrop, the question of how far Washington is prepared to use its influence to remove Israeli obstacles to holding Palestinian elections in Gaza and Jerusalem becomes futile and detached from reality.

Netanyahu has explicitly rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River, whether in the West Bank or Gaza. In early 2024, the Israeli government unanimously rejected unilateral international recognition of a Palestinian state, and in mid-2024 the Knesset voted against the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan.

The following year, Netanyahu said that Israel’s vision for “the day after” was for Gaza to have a civilian administration “run neither by Hamas nor by the Palestinian Authority”, with Israel retaining security responsibility for an indefinite period. The administrative committee created under Trump’s plan has fulfilled Israel’s preference in this regard.

This stands in contrast to the Palestinian vision. Comprehensive Palestinian elections could provide a mechanism for reunifying the Palestinians and reinforcing the formal political legitimacy of their country. Holding such elections remains contingent on the decisions and authority of the occupying power. Palestinian legitimacy, however, is rooted in Palestinian unity and consensus, and elections controlled by Israel are not the only path towards achieving it.

OPINION: Palestinian elections confront an intractable reality

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.