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Palestinians cast ballot in West Bank and Gaza in first elections since outbreak of war
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the central area of Gaza are casting ballots today for local elections in the first vote since the Gaza war.
Over 1 million people are eligible to vote, including more than 70,000 people in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah area, according to the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission.
An AFP journalist visiting stations in the West Bank said turnout was low this morning, with the elections commission reporting a turnout of 15% so far.
Most of the electoral lists are aligned with the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party or feature candidates running as independents. There are no lists affiliated with Hamas, which controls nearly half of the Gaza Strip.
The Fatah party is the driving force behind the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA), the latter of which governs the West Bank in a tense partnership with occupying Israel and is deeply unpopular among Palestinians. Many in the West Bank continue to face relentless settler attacks, with two Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, killed on Tuesday after Israeli settlers opened fire near a school in the village of al-Mughayyir.
Today’s vote is the first Palestinian election to be held since the Gaza war began in October 2023.
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Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi delivered Tehran’s negotiating demands, as well as its reservations about US demands, to Pakistani officials during his visit to Islamabad, a Pakistani source involved in the talks has told Reuters.
As we’ve been reporting, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are on their way to Islamabad, though Iranian state media has denied direct talks will take place.
Andrew Roth
Nearly eight weeks after Donald Trump launched his assault on Iran, the White House has shifted from a strategy of shock-and-awe bombardments and leadership decapitation to a plan of sustained economic pressure as it tests the will of a regime practiced over decades at wars of attrition.
Since the negotiations stalled, the White House has begun to shift its messaging to say it is willing to wait to strike a more durable deal with Iran – despite the growing economic toll inflicted on the world economy by the closure of the strait of Hormuz. The reason, senior officials have said, is because the joint US-Israeli strikes were so successful that they have fractured Iran’s leadership and prevented a new consolidation of power.
“Don’t rush me,” Trump told reporters on Thursday when asked how long he was willing to wait for Iran to respond to the US’s latest ceasefire proposal. “We were in Vietnam, like, for 18 years. We were in Iraq for many, many years … I’ve been doing this for six weeks.”
Reminded that he told people in the US that the war would end in four to six weeks, Trump added: “Well, I hoped that, but I took a little break.”
The whiplash of Trump’s diplomacy – as well as the growing cost of the war – has unsettled career officials at the Pentagon and state department, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress, as well as foreign allies who increasingly view the US as a destabilising force.
The White House’s latest strategy coalesced earlier this week during a meeting of Trump’s national security team – including Vance and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state: continued economic pressure on Iran to open the strait while waiting for Tehran to provide a unified response to US offers for a ceasefire deal.
But the lack of a sustained strategy to end the Iranian war – and in particular to address the closure of the strait of Hormuz – has convinced US allies that the White House is running out of ideas to manage the threat from Tehran.
UK and Finland condemn attacks on journalists in Lebanon after death of Amal Khalil
The UK Foreign Office has issued a joint statement between Britain and Finland condemning attacks on journalists in Lebanon, after the death of Amal Khalil, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Wednesday.
The statement said:
Journalists and media workers play an essential role in putting the spotlight on the devastating reality of war.
Attacks on journalists in Lebanon, including journalist Amal Khalil, killed in an Israeli strike on 22 April, are unacceptable.
As Co Chairs of the Media Freedom Coalition, the UK and Finland strongly condemn all violence directed against journalists and media workers.
We call on the Israeli authorities and all other parties to make every effort to ensure that media workers in Lebanon can conduct their work freely and safely.
Associated Press has been speaking to some Palestinian voters taking part in today’s local elections in the occupied West Bank and central Gaza.
Khalid al-Qawasmeh, from the West Bank city of Beitunia, said people were voting out of hope for changes that address crumbling infrastructure and public services.
“Municipal laws need to be enforced so people feel there’s justice,” he said.
There have been no national elections since 2006, with the Fatah-ruled Palestinian Authority remaining in power in the West Bank and president Mahmoud Abbas serving well beyond his original term which expired in 2009.
Under the slogan “We Stay”, the Ramallah-based Central Election Commission has campaigned to encourage participation.
Voting “reflects the will if the Palestinian people to stay on their land and develop their country”, its spokesperson, Fareed Taamallah, said.
Palestinians cast ballot in West Bank and Gaza in first elections since outbreak of war
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the central area of Gaza are casting ballots today for local elections in the first vote since the Gaza war.
Over 1 million people are eligible to vote, including more than 70,000 people in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah area, according to the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission.
An AFP journalist visiting stations in the West Bank said turnout was low this morning, with the elections commission reporting a turnout of 15% so far.
Most of the electoral lists are aligned with the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party or feature candidates running as independents. There are no lists affiliated with Hamas, which controls nearly half of the Gaza Strip.
The Fatah party is the driving force behind the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA), the latter of which governs the West Bank in a tense partnership with occupying Israel and is deeply unpopular among Palestinians. Many in the West Bank continue to face relentless settler attacks, with two Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, killed on Tuesday after Israeli settlers opened fire near a school in the village of al-Mughayyir.
Today’s vote is the first Palestinian election to be held since the Gaza war began in October 2023.
The Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said Turkey could consider taking part in demining operations in the strait of Hormuz following a possible peace agreement between Iran and the US, Reuters reports.
Speaking to reporters in London yesterday, Fidan said any demining work would be carried out by a technical team from various countries, and that Turkey would have “no problem” with participating.
He also said he believed issues related to Iran’s nuclear programme could be resolved at the next round of talks in Pakistan.
We have some images coming through the newswires of Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, speaking with Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, and other officials in Islamabad this morning.
Araghchi arrived in Pakistan last night. He wrote on social media that his trip would focus on “bilateral matters and regional developments”.
The US special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are traveling to the Pakistani capital today, but it is not clear if they will meet any Iranian officials.
Iran has resumed some commercial flights from Tehran’s international airport for the first time since the conflict began.
Iranian media reported flights from Imam Khomeini airport departed today to Istanbul in Turkey, Muscat in Oman and Medina in Saudi Arabia, according to Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency. Iran partly reopened its airspace earlier this month amid a ceasefire with the US.
Iran said it has hanged what it described as an agent working for Israel who was accused of vandalism and violence during nationwide protests in January, according to the country’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.
An Iranian man identified as Irfan Kayani, was accused of “creating terror” and hanged today after the supreme court confirmed the verdict, Tasnim reported.
Iran is the world’s second most prolific user of the death penalty after China, according to Amnesty . The human rights group reported in September that Iranian authorities executed more than a 1,000 people last year, the highest number of yearly executions in Iran that the organisation has recorded in at least 15 years. Iran has been accused of using the death penalty as a tool of political repression, and using the chaos of war as cover to accelerate executions and suppress dissent.
In the last month, 16 men – eight political prisoners and eight protesters – have been hanged in Iran, Daniel Boffey reports. The youngest to die so far has been 18-year-old Amirhossein Hatami, who was hanged on 2 April after giving what was said to have been a forced confession to the charges of moharebeh (enmity against god) and efsad-fil-arz (corruption on earth) in relation to alleged involvement in an attack a Revolutionary Guard Corps base in Tehran during the January protests.
In his article, Daniel explores the surge in executions in Iran during wartime, detailed through the letters, testimonies and videos from death row victims to reveal the human impact behind the crackdown. Their personal accounts describe prison conditions, forced confession and messages to families.
You can Daniel’s report here:
Israel strikes Lebanon days after Trump said ceasefire extended
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it launched strikes in three areas in southern Lebanon against what it claimed were Hezbollah rocket launchers.
The strikes hit the villages of Deir al-Zahrani, Kfar Reman and al-Sama’iya, which are north of where IDF forces are located in southern Lebanon.
On Thursday, Donald Trump announced that a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon – which was due to expire tomorrow – has been extended by three weeks. But the ceasefire has only been loosely observed by Israel and Hezbollah, with few but continued attacks reported since the start of the truce on 17 April.
Islamabad is getting ready for what is hoped to be the latest round of talks between the US and Iran, with US envoys expected to travel to Pakistan. But Iran has ruled out direct negotiations with US representatives.
Nearly eight weeks after Donald Trump launched his assault on Iran, the White House has shifted from a strategy of shock-and-awe bombardments and leadership decapitation to a plan of sustained economic pressure as it tests the will of a regime practiced over decades at wars of attrition.
But as the Guardian’s global affairs correspondent, Andrew Roth, writes, US allies are worried that the White House is running out of ideas. At the same time, Washington has signalled it will punish its Nato allies for failing to support it more openly – while they suffer the worst economic consequences from the closure of the vital waterway.
“We don’t see a clear strategy – and we don’t think that there is one,” said a senior European diplomat in Washington. “And we are worried we will be left with the fallout.”
You can read more of Andrew’s analysis here:
While US envoys head to Islamabad in the hope of renewing peace talks with Iran, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza began voting Saturday in municipal elections in a first vote since the Gaza war, marked by a narrow political field and widespread disillusionment.
Nearly 1.5 million people are registered to vote in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as 70,000 people in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah area, according to the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission.
Most electoral lists are aligned with President Mahmud Abbas’s secular-nationalist Fatah party or running as independents. There are no lists affiliated with Fatah’s archrival, Hamas, which controls nearly half of the Gaza Strip.
A US-Kuwaiti journalist who was detained in Kuwait for online posts related to the Iran war has been released and has left the Gulf nation, after being acquitted of “spreading false information”.
A US state department official said on Friday that Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, 41, had left Kuwait.
Last week, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Shihab-Eldin had not been seen in public since 2 March, after being detained by Kuwaiti authorities during a crackdown by Gulf nations on people filming or posting footage from the conflict that started when the US and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February.
Shihab-Eldin had been visiting family in Kuwait and was arrested on 3 March, according to CPJ. The media watchdog said he was charged with spreading false information, harming national security and misusing his mobile phone.
A Kuwaiti court acquitted him on all charges, CPJ said on Thursday, citing a statement from lawyers for Shihab-Eldin’s sisters.
The US said on Friday it had imposed sanctions on an independent “teapot” refinery in China for buying billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil, as Washington and Tehran head into another round of peace talks this weekend.
The Treasury Department targeted Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery, which it said is one of Iran’s largest customers of crude oil and petroleum products. The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said it also imposed sanctions on about 40 shipping companies and vessels that operate as part of Iran’s shadow fleet.
China has said it opposes “illegal” unilateral sanctions. On Friday, its embassy in Washington said normal trade should not be harmed and called on Washington to stop “abusing” sanctions to target Chinese companies.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of events in the Middle East, with Steve Witkoff and president Trump’s son-in-law headed to Pakistan in a bid to kickstart a new round of peace negotiations with Iran amid a fragile ceasefire, though the prospect of direct talks remained uncertain.
The White House said emissaries Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would engage in an “in-person conversation” with Iranian representatives, but Iranian state media said that direct negotiations were not on the cards.
Here is a quick recap of the latest:
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Islamabad late Friday. Earlier on social media, he wrote that he was travelling to Pakistan on a trip focused on “bilateral matters and regional developments.” He didn’t specify who he would meet.
Shortly after Araghchi touched down, the country’s government made it clear there would be no direct negotiations with American government representatives during this visit. Foreign ministry spokesperson Esmael Baqaei said on X that, “No meeting is planned to take place between Iran and the US”.
Instead, Baqaei said Pakistani officials would convey messages between the delegations. Baqaei thanked the Pakistani government for its “ongoing mediation + good offices for ending American imposed war of aggression.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had said in an interview on Fox News that Witkoff and Kushner would meet with Araghchi. “We’re hopeful that it will be a productive conversation and hopefully move the ball forward to a deal,” Leavitt said. She said vice-president JD Vance would not travel but that he remains “deeply involved,” and would be willing to go to Pakistan “if we feel it’s a necessary use of his time.”
The talks planned for Saturday come as much of the world is on edge over a war that has snarled crucial energy exports through the strait of Hormuz, clouded the global economic picture and left thousands dead across the Middle East.
The international community continues to denounce the humanitarian crises stemming from the conflict. European Council president António Costa said on Friday that the immediate opening of the strait of Hormuz without restrictions is “vital” for the world. Also, a World Food Programme representative today said that 45 million people will face food insecurity and malnutrition if the strait of Hormuz continues to be blocked.
Pakistan has been trying to get US and Iranian officials back to the table after Trump this week announced an indefinite extension of the ceasefire with Iran, honouring Islamabad’s request for more time for diplomatic outreach.
That hasn’t lowered tensions in the strait, a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas is shipped during peacetime. Iran has kept its stranglehold on traffic through the strait, attacking three ships earlier this week, while the US is maintaining a blockade on Iranian ports and Trump has ordered the military to “shoot and kill” small boats that could be placing mines.
