The Palestinian Supreme Court ruled on Monday that local elections would be held in the occupied West Bank, but not in the Gaza Strip.
The court ruled that elections couldn't be held in the besieged Gaza Strip "because courts operating there are illegal," a Ma'an reporter who attended the two-hour court hearing in Ramallah said.
On Sept. 8, the Supreme Court had ordered a halt on municipal elections in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip expected to be held on Oct. 8.
The Fatah-controlled Supreme Court said at the time that the decision was in response to several appeals submitted by lawyers challenging the legitimacy of elections that would not include occupied East Jerusalem, stating that any administrative procedure must be conducted in every region of Palestine.
It remained unclear at publishing time whether municipal elections would be held in East Jerusalem, and why the Supreme Court seemingly decided to go back on its previous statement regarding the need to include all the Palestinian territory in the vote.
A poll released by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) on Tuesday found that 61 percent of respondents were displeased by the Supreme Court's decision to postpone the municipal elections, with 60 percent believing that the decision was politically motivated.
Prior to their cancellation, the municipal elections were set to be the first in the Gaza Strip in a decade, after Hamas' victory in the 2006 vote erupted into a violent conflict between Hamas and Fatah, as both groups attempted to take control of the besieged coastal enclave.
