Palestinian Authority Postpones Elections, Citing Israeli Restrictions. Israel Denies The Charges.

Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), issued a decree delaying the November elections, which would have been the first Palestinian elections in nearly two decades, by 10 months.

On Saturday Abbas ruled that both legislative and presidential elections should be held simultaneously on September 11th 2027, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. Abbas has ruled the PA since the last presidential election in 2005. The last parliamentary elections held in Palestine took place in 2006.

According to WAFA, various Palestinian political factions came to the joint conclusion that the vote had to be pushed back because of "obstacles posed by Israeli measures" as well as the "need to to establish suitable political, security and field conditions for free, fair and inclusive elections."

The decree demands that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem and the West Bank participate in these elections.

The "obstacles" cited include "continued Israeli military attacks, settlement expansion, colonist violence and repeated Israeli incursions across the West Bank ...the incomplete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the [Gaza] strip" as well as financial impediments such as the "withholding of Palestinian clearance revenues."

Israel collects custom and tax revenues on behalf of the PA, and frequently withholds and freezes such funds. As of May 2026, Tel Aviv was withholding nearly $5 billion worth of tax revenue owed to the PA, a report by Haaretz, Israel's oldest daily newspaper, found.

The Israeli military has expanded its control to occupy approximately 70% of the Gaza Strip, which is about twice the size of Washington D.C., and the remaining 30% is inhabited by the territory's population of more than 2 million Palestinians, a recent NPR report found.

Since 2022, 104 new Israeli settlements have been established or retroactively legalized in the West Bank, which the UN views, along with the Gaza Strip, as an occupied Palestinian territory.

An August 2026 report by the New York-based human rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleged that Israeli "settler violence has completely or partially displaced 107 communities comprising 5,900 Palestinians since January 2023." HRW also accuses the Israeli military of being complicit in many such cases of Palestinian displacement by Israeli settlers.

The Israeli government considers the West Bank to be disputed territory, and calls the area Judea and Samaria.

High-ranking Israeli government officials were also quick to deny the claims of electoral obstacles imposed by Israel on Palestine, instead accusing Abbas of wanting to hold onto power.

"Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian corrupt dictator, who has not held elections in over twenty years, has once again deceived the international community. His attempt to drag Israel into this, falsely claiming that Israel imposed obstacles to holding elections, is yet another ridiculous lie designed to evade responsibility and accountability." Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar posted on X on Saturday.