Polling stations opened on Saturday morning across all areas of the West Bank and the central Gaza Strip, allowing Palestinian voters to take part in municipal council elections in the first ever voting process since the outbreak of the Gaza war, according to AFP correspondents.

Municipal elections in the West Bank and central Gaza. (AFP)

Voting began at 7:00 a.m. Jerusalem time (04:00 GMT) and is scheduled to end at 5:00 p.m. (14:00 GMT). The Central Elections Commission said that around one and a half million Palestinians are eligible to cast their votes.

Video recordings from Al-Bireh in the West Bank and Deir al-Balah in Gaza showed officials at polling stations as Palestinians arrived to vote.

Most of the electoral lists belong either to the Fatah movement led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas or to independent candidates, while there are no lists affiliated with Hamas, which controls nearly half of the Gaza Strip.

In most cities, Fatah-backed lists are competing against independent lists led by candidates from various factions, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which has a Marxist-Leninist orientation.

Mahmoud Badr, a businessman from the city of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, where two adjacent refugee camps have been under Israeli military control for more than a year, said he would vote despite having little hope for real change.

He told AFP: “Whether the candidates are independent or affiliated with parties, it makes no difference, and it will not benefit the city in any way.”

He added: “The occupation is what governs Tulkarem. What is happening is nothing more than an image presented to the international media, as if we have elections, a state, or independence.”

In other cities, including Nablus and Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority is based, only one list has been presented, meaning it automatically wins by acclamation without the need for voting.

The Elections Commission stated that polling stations in the West Bank will close at 7:00 p.m. (16:00 GMT), while ballot boxes in Deir al-Balah will close at 5:00 p.m. to facilitate counting in daylight due to electricity outages in the war devastated territory.

United Nations coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov praised the Elections Commission for organizing “a credible process.”

He said in a statement: “Saturday’s elections represent an important opportunity for Palestinians to exercise their democratic rights under exceptional and highly challenging circumstances.”