Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday postponed legislative elections to September next year, official media said, confirming widespread speculation that they would be delayed once again.

The first legislative elections since 2006, which the international community has strongly advocated for, had been scheduled for November 28, with a presidential election expected in early 2027.

But both elections will now be held on September 11, 2027, Abbas said in a decree, blaming Israeli “obstacles”, according to the Palestinian official news agency Wafa.

Israel, which will hold its own elections on October 27, had blasted Abbas as a “corrupt dictator” over the postponement.

Abbas’s office, in a statement published by Wafa, blamed the delay on “obstacles imposed by Israeli measures… as well as the need to create appropriate political, security and on-the-ground conditions”.

Abu Amin Joudeh, a displaced man living in the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah, said Palestinians wanted to vote for their representatives.

“We know things are difficult here because of the war and all the destruction, but how long will the elections continue to be postponed?” said the 40-year-old.

This week, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority said Israel refused to allow Palestinian election officials access to east Jerusalem or Gaza ahead of the legislative elections.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Friday had denied Israel was obstructing the process.

“(Abbas’s) 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,” Saar said on X.

Palestinian factions including Abbas’s Fatah party and its longtime Islamist rival Hamas had agreed to recommend the elections be postponed at a meeting in Cairo on Wednesday, a source who was present told AFP.

Mohammed Dahlan, head of a splinter group from Abbas’s Fatah party, called the delay a “crime against democracy”.

“Abbas and the circle of self-serving beneficiaries around him have turned the institutions of the Palestinian Authority into a private fiefdom,” Dahlan, a Gaza native based in the United Arab Emirates, said in a statement.

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