Gaza officials say Deir el-Balah vote is a ‘pilot’, while occupied West Bank also goes to first polls since 2023 war.

Facing acute shortages of food and water and lacking security, displaced Palestinians from northern Gaza have relocated to Gaza City and are now living in tents among piles of rubbish and rubble.

Palestinians are voting Saturday in local elections, the first in two decades in Gaza and the first in the occupied West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

In November 2023, babies evacuated from a Gaza City hospital under siege were sent to Egypt for lifesaving medical care — many without their parents.

The Israeli military began a ground offensive targeting Gaza City on Tuesday, slowly squeezing in on the Palestinian territory's largest city that has seen block after block already destroyed in the Israel-Hamas war.