Hamas says vote results distorted

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Official results from Palestinian elections released yesterday confirmed that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party won in 51 of 104 municipalities, to 13 for the Hamas militant group.

Palestinian Election Committee head Jamal Shobaki said other factions or coalitions won in the remaining 40 municipalities.

Thursday's vote was the third of four rounds of municipal elections, and was not necessarily a predictor of parliamentary elections in January because local issues and candidates' clan membership figured heavily.

The election committee intentionally avoided announcing that Fatah ran unopposed in some areas to make it appear its candidates had trounced Hamas, charged Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. He said, however, that Hamas would not officially challenge the results.

Fatah, under fire for running a corrupt government, was not expected to make a strong showing in the municipal voting. Hamas, by contrast, has been taking credit for Israel's recent withdrawal from Gaza, and was expected to do well.

But the militant group's public standing suffered after some of its homemade rockets blew up at a rally last week, killing 21 people and wounding dozens of others. Hamas blamed Israel for the explosion, and fired barrages of rockets at an Israeli town that borders Gaza.

Israel responded with airstrikes at Hamas targets and arrest raids, rounding up some 35 Hamas members who were either candidates in the municipal elections or active in the voting. Of those arrested, 17 won the election, Shobaki said.

In the past week, Israel has arrested 441 people in the West Bank, and killed five in the process. Israel has used the Hamas actions in Gaza as a reason for its continuing sweep through the West Bank, which the Israeli commander there, Brig. Gen. Yair Golan, likened to "keeping the grass cropped all the time" in an interview with the newspaper Maariv.

But with relative quiet now in Gaza and pressure from Washington not to damage the administration of Abbas, Israeli officials say they are likely to "re-evaluate" the campaign, according to Israel Radio.

Information from The New York Times is included in this report.