Mahmoud Abbas met senior Palestinian officials on Saturday morning to discuss delaying the vote. He then issued a presidential decree moving legislative elections from November 28, 2026 to September 11, 2027, and setting presidential elections for the same day.
The decision extends a political hiatus that has lasted since the 2005-2006 elections. The last legislative contest, in 2006, brought a surprise victory for Hamas over Abbas' Fatah movement.
Hamas later took control of Gaza, removing Abbas loyalists and dividing Palestinian governance between Gaza and the West Bank.
Abbas has governed by decree since his presidential mandate expired in 2009.
The formal postponement followed months of mixed signals. In early September, Jibril Rajoub, Fatah's secretary-general, told reporters that the November elections would miss their timetable.
Yet Abbas restated the November timetable in his September 24 address to the UN General Assembly. The Saturday decree followed.
Two Palestinian officials said on Thursday that Fatah and Hamas leaders had agreed to delay the elections at a meeting in Cairo on Wednesday.
Abbas' decree referred to 'obstacles posed by Israeli measures' and said suitable political, security and on-the-ground conditions were needed for 'free, fair and inclusive elections'.
The stated obstacles included Israeli military raids, settlement expansion, settler violence, systemic withholding of Palestinian tax revenues, and limits on electoral candidates and international observers entering Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem.
Israel generally bars the Palestinian Authority from holding elections in East Jerusalem, territory it captured in the 1967 war and later annexed.
A Palestinian Authority source said Israel had denied Palestinian election officials access to East Jerusalem and Gaza before the planned polls. The Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee said election materials and international observers had also been prevented from entering Gaza.
The decree nevertheless called on Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza to vote.
The delay sits awkwardly alongside Abbas' earlier written commitments to French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to hold presidential and legislative elections as part of France's recognition of a Palestinian state in September 2025.
Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Saar, challenged Abbas' explanation in a post on X. 'Mahmoud Abbas is fooling the international community by cancelling once again promised elections', Saar wrote.
The Palestinian Authority did hold municipal elections in April in the West Bank and Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. They were the first elections held in Gaza since 2006.
An August poll by the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found support falling for both Hamas and Fatah.
For now, the postponement leaves the established Palestinian leadership without an electoral challenge. It also threatens further damage to the Palestinian Authority's credibility among Palestinians and donor countries that fund it.
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