Tuesday’s twice-postponed municipal elections in Israel could provide an indication of the public’s sentiment almost five months into the conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
As the conflict rages on, soldiers have already shown up at special voting places set up in Israeli encampments in Gaza during the past week.
In the municipal elections, which will take place in much of Israel, including in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem, and portions of the Golan Heights that have been annexed, over seven million people are eligible to vote.
Originally set for October 31, the vote has been rescheduled for November 2024 in towns and villages that border the Gaza Strip under siege or in Lebanon, where Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, has been firing missiles at Israel virtually nonstop since the beginning of the Gaza conflict.
Hostilities in such areas have resulted in the displacement of about 150,000 Israelis.
Following Hamas’s October 7 onslaught on southern Israel, which claimed at least 1,160 lives, the majority of them civilians, an AFP tally based on official numbers showed that the elections had been postponed nationwide.
The health ministry of the Hamas-run region reports that at least 29,782 individuals have died in Gaza as a result of the ensuing Israeli military assault against the group, the majority of them were women and children.
Two candidates for council chiefs 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 at her home in Nir Oz with her husband and three young children.
Far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish candidates who support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political allies are competing against more moderate and government critics in a number of large towns, including Jerusalem.
The public’s pressure on Netanyahu has grown due to the situation of the hostages that are still being held in Gaza and the resurgence of the anti-government demonstration movement.
