Despite the war situation, some 7.2 million voters were called to the polls for Israel’s municipal elections on Tuesday, February 27.
Israelis began voting on Tuesday in municipal elections, which were postponed twice, that could offer a gauge of the public mood nearly five months into the war against Hamas in Gaza.
Soldiers already cast their ballots over the past week at special polling stations set up in army encampments in Gaza as the fighting rages on.
Polls opened at 7:00 AM (05:00 GMT) and were due to close at 10:00 PM (20:00 GMT).
More than seven million people are eligible to vote in the elections for local councils across most of Israel, in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem and parts of the annexed Golan Heights.
The vote, first scheduled for October 31, has been pushed back to November 2024 in towns and villages bordering the besieged Gaza Strip or Lebanon, where Hamas’ ally Hezbollah has been firing rockets at Israel almost daily since the start of the Gaza war.
Nearly 150,000 Israelis have been displaced by hostilities in those areas.
Two candidates for council chief in Gaza border areas were killed in the October 7 attack: Ofir Libstein in Kfar Aza and Tamar Kedem Siman Tov, who was shot dead in her home in Nir Oz with her husband and three young children.
In Jerusalem and other major cities, far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish candidates, aligned with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political allies, are running against government critics and more moderate candidates.
Netanyahu has been facing increasing public pressure over the fate of hostages still held in Gaza, and from a resurgent anti-government protest movement.
National Springboard
Tel Aviv’s mayor of 25 years, Ron Huldai, is seeking re-election in a race against former Economy Minister Orna Barbivai and lawyer Amir Badran, who hopes to become the Israeli commercial hub’s first Arab mayor but faces long odds.
If elected, Barbivai would be the first woman holding this position.
In Jerusalem, another Arab lawyer, Walid Abu Tayeh, announced that he would run but ultimately did not submit his candidacy.
The elections for municipal and regional councils are largely seen as local affairs, though some races can become springboards for politicians with national ambitions.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid, who had a brief stint as prime minister before Netanyahu and returned to power in late 2022, said that Tuesday’s vote shows that “there is no problem” holding elections even during the war.
In a post on the social media platform X, Lapid called for a snap parliamentary election “as soon as possible” to replace Netanyahu.
Voter turnout in the last round of local elections, in 2018, stood at 59.5%, lower than any of Israel’s five parliamentary elections since 2019.
Most Palestinians in east Jerusalem, seized by Israel in 1967 and later annexed, have the right to vote in municipal elections but not for parliament.
Palestinian residents make up around 40% of the city’s population, but many of them boycotted past elections.
The first results are expected later on Tuesday. Second round run-offs will be held where necessary on March 10.
IBZ, with AFP
