Palestinians line up to vote in local elections

In the village of Beit Kahil, men and women are lining up to vote.

They’re voting in Palestinian municipal elections, in a rare democratic exercise in the occupied West Bank.

The elections come amid rising anger with President Mahmoud Abbas who is sagging in the opinion polls.

The 86 year-old drew widespread criticism in April when he cancelled planned legislative and presidential votes earlier this year.

Abbas previously citied Israeli curbs on Palestinian voting in East Jerusalem to delay the vote, but critics accused him of using it as an excuse as polls showed he and his party would lose to Islamist rulers Hamas.

Abbas who has ruled by decree for over a decade denies this.

More than 400,000 Palestinians were eligible to cast ballots for representatives in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Saturday (December 11).

But voting is not being held in Gaza where Hamas are boycotting the vote amid a rift with Abbas' Fatah party.

Hamas has enjoyed a surge in popularity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since fighting an 11-day war with Israel in May.

The group won student council elections this year at several top West Bank universities, an important barometer of support.

Hamas won the Palestinians' last legislative election, in 2006.

That laid the ground for a political rupture: Hamas seized Gaza after fighting a short civil war with Fatah in 2007, and has ruled the coastal enclave ever since.

The Palestinians seek statehood in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, territory Israel captured in a 1967 war.

But peace talks between the two sides have consistently broken down.