From the Liveblog of
Monday, November 18, 2024
Southern Israeli municipalities to hold elections tomorrow after nearly year-long delay
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Residents of southern Israel will cast their ballots in local elections on Tuesday, the better part of a year after municipal elections were held in rest of the country.
Polls will open at 7:00 a.m. in the Eshkol Regional Council, Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council, Sdot Negev Regional Council, and Sderot, nine months after they were postponed due to the ongoing war in Gaza.
According to the Interior Ministry, 65,335 voters will be eligible to take part in the elections at 15 polling stations within the southern districts, while an additional seven polling stations will be set up across the rest of the country for those displaced by the fighting.
In a statement, the ministry announces that it will “operate a special transportation system for the benefit of the evacuees in the cities of Bat Yam, Ashkelon, Netivot and Gan Yavne.”
Israel’s first nationwide local elections since 2018 had initially been scheduled for October 31, 2023, but were pushed off to January 31, in the wake of Hamas’s devastating attack on southern Israel on October 7. They were delayed a second time, due to the number of reservists still fighting, and were finally held across most of the country in February.
The Times of Israel Community.