Palestinians began voting in local elections on Saturday, April 25, marking the first time in nearly two decades that the process has included the Gaza Strip since Hamas seized control in 2007, Reuters reported.
The vote is currently limited to the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where voter turnout has been reported as active. The Palestinian Authority (PA), based in the West Bank, views the inclusion of the city as a symbolic step toward re-establishing its governance over the territory.
Western diplomats and regional governments, including European and Arab states, have expressed support for the PA’s return to Gaza as part of a broader path toward national elections and a future independent Palestinian state.
According to preliminary data, more than one million Palestinians are eligible to participate in the local elections across the territories, with approximately 70,000 registered voters in Gaza. The process is being monitored as a test for transparency and accountability reforms recently initiated by the PA.
International Glance
An American millionaire big-game hunter has died after being crushed by a group of elephants during a hunting expedition in Gabon.
India on Thursday criticised as inappropriate a post by Donald Trump in which he shared comments that called the South Asian country a “hellhole”.
As he attempts to wind down the regional war in the Middle East he kicked off in February by joining Israel in attacking Iran, Donald Trump just hosted the ambassadors of Lebanon and Israel in the Oval Office, and invited television cameras in to capture the foreign officials praising him.
Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, when asked to explain the apparent about-face that led him to advocate the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, quoted a beloved Israeli pop ballad. “What you can see from there, you can’t see from here,” he said, referring to the shift in perspective he had supposedly undergone since coming to power.
In recent months, European expressions of concern over the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have regularly hardened into outright condemnation. Last September, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, expressed horror and outrage at aid restrictions that she said created a “man-made famine” in Gaza. Brussels has inveighed against settler violence and land grabs in the West Bank, which undermine the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. Responding to the bombing of Lebanon following the US-Israeli ceasefire with Iran, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said: “Israel’s right to self-defence does not justify this destruction.”





























