The near-final results of local Palestinian Authority elections that took place on Thursday indicate a major win for Fatah. The organization won 61 of the 104 local councils which held elections, while Hamas won 28 councils alone. Around 70 percent of eligible voters took part in the elections. Only 82 councils actually held elections, after 22 councils were set up following agreements between clans and various parties. Fatah won most of those councils through agreements rather than competition. It should also be noted that Hamas only ran for 56 councils, and therefore won 50 percent of the councils it contested. Hamas officials said statistics show that the organization fared better than initially announced by the Palestinian elections committee, and that its performance was from being considered a failure. The gap between the Hamas and Fatah is not as large as first though, in light of the fact that Fatah obtained a significant amount of councils through agreement, said Hamas sources. Hamas also claimed that its decision to run for a small number of councils stemmed from a wish to avoid contesting the smaller councils, where politics were shaped by clans and their interests.
Analysts in the Palestinian Authority said the results projected a small advantage for Fatah over Hamas, which they said would repeat itself during the Palestinian general elections in January. At the same time, some Palestinian analysts claimed that a continued Israeli counteroffensive against Hamas would aid the terror group.