Palestinian Authority Says Elections Are to Be Postponed

The Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank informed France this week that legislative elections in the territory scheduled for Nov. 28 would be postponed by several months, according to two Palestinian officials briefed on the communications. The message was conveyed in a letter to the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, from Hussein al-Sheikh, deputy to the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, the officials said. Reuters first reported on the letter. A postponement of the elections would come as Fatah, the governing party in of the PA, suffers from division, especially over Mr. Abbas’s increasingly authoritarian rule. Israel, which controls whether ballot boxes or election observers can enter Gaza, has also shown little readiness to facilitate the voting. That lack of engagement complicates the work of the Palestinian Authority’s election commission, according to three Western diplomats. The Palestinian officials and Western diplomats spoke to The New York Times on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matters. A delay in holding elections would not help Mr. Abbas’s efforts to convince European nations and the United States that he can deliver changes to the Palestinian political system. The European Union is one of the Palestinian Authority’s biggest backers and has pressed Palestinian officials to pursue democratic reforms, including holding elections. In September 2025, President Emmanuel Macron of France recognized a Palestinian state at the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, citing a series of commitments that Mr. Abbas had made to him, including “a thorough overhaul of Palestinian governance.” We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in . Want all of The Times? Subscribe .