The Palestinian Authority (PA) has not held a presidential election since 2005, when the Fatah faction’s Mahmoud Abbas won with 62 percent of the vote. Following its victory in 2006 democratic legislative elections and a violent rift with Fatah and the West Bank–based PA in 2007, Hamas seized internal control of the Gaza Strip. Abbas’s four-year electoral mandate expired in 2009, though he has continued to govern in the West Bank.

Under PA laws, the prime minister is nominated by the president and requires the support of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was nominated and sworn in as prime minister following the 2006 elections, and again in 2007 as part of a short-lived unity government, but he was dismissed by President Abbas after the Fatah-Hamas conflict that year. Hamas did not recognize the dismissal.

Over the past several years, successive rounds of Palestinian reconciliation talks involving Hamas, Fatah, and other Palestinian factions have failed to produce a durable unity government or comprehensive PA elections, and Hamas continued to exercise de facto executive authority in the Gaza Strip. The leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was confirmed for a second term as de facto head of government in a closed election by Hamas officials in 2021; he had first been chosen in 2017. Haniyeh, who had been living abroad in recent years, was similarly confirmed as the overall leader of Hamas for a second four-year term in 2021. Israeli agents assassinated Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024, and Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in October. Hamas replaced them with a committee of interim leaders pending an internal selection process.

The PA has not held elections for the 132-seat PLC since 2006, when Hamas won 74 seats and Fatah took 45. The subsequent Fatah-Hamas schism and Israel’s detention of many lawmakers left the full PLC unable to function, and the body’s electoral mandate expired in 2010. Nonetheless, a Hamas-led rump legislature continued to operate in the Gaza Strip, and Hamas rebuffed President Abbas’s 2018 order to formally dissolve the PLC. During the Israeli military campaign that began in response to Hamas’s October 2023 terrorist attack on Israel, the PLC building in Gaza was bombed, a number of members were killed, and related infrastructure was damaged.

Hamas officials in Gaza have consistently boycotted PA-led municipal council elections that proceeded in the West Bank, calling instead for comprehensive presidential, legislative, and municipal elections.

No open elections for any office have been held in Gaza since 2006. Decisions about the conduct and administration of elections are highly politicized and dependent on agreements between partisan factions. Hamas has refused to participate in successive PA municipal elections due to disputes about their management and circumstances.

Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has functioned as a de facto one-party state under Hamas rule, although smaller parties—including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and a faction of Fatah that opposes President Abbas—are tolerated to varying degrees. Some of these groups have their own armed wings and media outlets, and have held rallies and gatherings. However, those affiliated with Abbas and his supporters in Fatah are subject to persecution. The conflict that erupted in October 2023 has further suppressed civilian political activity.

The repeated postponement of elections has prevented any opportunities for a change in the political status quo by democratic means. The ongoing rift between Fatah and Hamas has also prevented municipal elections in the Gaza Strip that might give non-Hamas factions an opportunity to govern at the local level.

Israel’s blockade of Gaza, which comprises strict limits on the movement of goods and people in and out of the territory, and constraints stemming from the Hamas-Fatah rift have long hampered the development of normal civilian political competition. Armed groups, including the Israeli military and the militias affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), have exercised disproportionate control over the day-to-day lives of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and left them with virtually no ability to shape policies that affect them. Political and militant groups in Gaza are also influenced by more distant foreign powers; Qatar has provided crucial financial aid to the territory and Hamas in particular, and the Iranian regime supports both Hamas and PIJ.

Beginning in October 2023, in the wake of Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel, the Israeli military’s bombardment and heavy deployments in Gaza amid ongoing combat with Hamas left the territory’s political future entirely in the hands of armed forces and foreign actors.

Hamas does not address the rights of marginalized groups within Palestinian society. Women enjoy formal political equality under PA laws, and some women won seats in the PLC in 2006. However, women are mostly excluded from leadership positions in Hamas and absent from public political events in practice. The political interests of LGBT+ people, who face widespread discrimination and the threat of violence in Gaza, are not addressed by the Hamas leadership. Palestinian women in the territory have participated in civil society activities that deal with political issues, but the continuation of the war throughout 2024 effectively suppressed opportunities for political engagement for the entire civilian population.

Score Change: The score declined from 1 to 0 because there were no remaining avenues for residents, including women and members of religious and other minority groups, to peacefully advocate for their political interests in the context of the Israel-Hamas war.

The expiration of the presidential and parliamentary terms in 2009 and 2010 left Gaza’s authorities with no electoral mandate. Hamas continued to govern the territory’s internal affairs unilaterally and in an authoritarian manner until the conflict that began in October 2023 disrupted governance in general and led to a large-scale Israeli military occupation. Any Israeli or international plans for future governmental arrangements in Gaza remained unclear at year’s end.

Hamas has been accused of corruption in public service delivery and aid distribution, which is crucial to daily life in Gaza given that even before the latest Israel-Hamas conflict, some 80 percent of the population depended on international assistance due to the blockade. Multiple reports by the Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (AMAN), a civil society organization, have noted that the continuing Fatah-Hamas schism, issues related to judicial integrity, and specific problems with the procurement process have impeded the prosecution of corruption cases. The Hamas regime’s limited anticorruption and law enforcement mechanisms were further disabled by the ongoing war in 2024. Widespread smuggling and illicit profiteering were reported, and organized looting of aid supplies and humanitarian convoys became more common. The alleged perpetrators included criminal gangs, smaller militant groups, and Hamas itself.

Score Change: The score declined from 1 to 0 due to increased looting of humanitarian aid and widespread profiteering since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, which also precluded the functioning of any existing anticorruption safeguards.

The Hamas-controlled government had no effective or independent mechanisms for ensuring transparency in its funding, procurements, or operations. AMAN’s reports have noted that political decision-making occurred out of public view. Israeli forces’ destruction or disabling of communications systems beginning in October 2023 further reduced access to information, and the Israeli authorities have largely denied access to Gaza for foreign journalists, whose reporting might shed light on conditions in the territory.

The media are not free in Gaza. West Bank–based newspapers have been permitted in the territory, and a number of political factions have their own media outlets. However, journalists and bloggers have faced repression from the Hamas government’s internal security apparatus and from Israeli forces. Rights activists have long reported a pattern of Hamas arrests, interrogations, and in some cases beatings and torture of journalists in Gaza.

The Israeli military has tightly controlled journalists’ access to Gaza since October 2023, and scores of reporters based in the territory have been killed during the war. As of December 2024, CPJ had documented the killing of some 150 journalists and media workers, including at least 11 whom it found to have been directly targeted by Israeli forces. Dozens of media offices have also been destroyed.

Freedom of religion is restricted. The PA Basic Law declares Islam to be the official religion of Palestine and states that “respect and sanctity of all other heavenly religions (Judaism and Christianity) shall be maintained.” Blasphemy is a criminal offense. Hamas authorities have enforced conservative Sunni Islamic practices and attempted to exert political control over mosques. However, they have not enforced prayers in schools or compelled women to wear hijab in Gaza’s main urban areas to the extent that they did in the early years of Hamas control. According to Palestinian authorities at the end of 2024, at least three churches and about 80 percent of Gaza’s 1,245 mosques had been damaged or destroyed since the Israel-Hamas conflict began in October 2023. Nineteen cemeteries were also allegedly destroyed.

Primary and secondary schools in the Gaza Strip have been run by Hamas, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), or private entities. In the Hamas-run Islamic University, people were separated by gender, and women were obliged to cover their hair. Hamas intervened in the schools under its control to uphold its views on Islamic identity and morality. It did not intervene extensively in private universities, but Hamas-led police have violently suppressed student demonstrations. Some Gazan academics are believed to have practiced self-censorship for their own safety.

Many academics and intellectuals in the Gaza Strip have been killed in air strikes and other violence related to the Israel-Hamas war since October 2023. According to UN OCHA, about 658,000 students had no access to formal education by the end of 2024, and at least 12,035 students and 492 educational staff had been killed; at least 88 percent of school buildings required reconstruction or major rehabilitation, and 92 university buildings had been damaged or destroyed. Many of the undamaged schools and universities have been repurposed as shelters for displaced civilians or as bases by combatants.

Intimidation by Hamas militants and other armed groups inhibits personal expression and private discussion in Gaza, and the Hamas authorities monitor social media for critical content. Hamas has regularly intimidated, detained, or abused individuals in response to their social media activity or attendance at political events, most notably those perceived to be supportive of Fatah or opposed to the Hamas government. Social media users, particularly women, also reportedly face online harassment for expressing political views.

With the outbreak of war in October 2023, surveillance by the Israeli military and other actors intensified and expanded. Israeli forces reportedly used digital surveillance tools to gather intelligence and targeting data, relying in part on analysis of individuals’ online activity.

Hamas significantly restricted freedom of assembly, with security forces violently dispersing unapproved public gatherings. Youth movements and youth-led protests have been systematically repressed by Hamas and its security personnel. Before the conflict that began in October 2023, Israeli forces used violent and frequently lethal methods to break up demonstrations near the de facto border. After the outbreak of the war, any assembly by civilians in public spaces became extremely dangerous, and this remained the case throughout 2024.

A broad range of Palestinian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and civic groups operated in Gaza under Hamas-imposed constraints prior to October 2023, and Hamas ran its own large social-services network. Hamas restricted the work of organizations that did not submit to its regulations, and many civic associations have been shut down for political reasons since the 2007 PA split. Aid and reconstruction efforts by NGOs after periodic conflicts with Israel have been held up in part by disagreements over international and PA access to the territory and control over border crossings. The Israeli government also imposed restrictions on access to Gaza for human rights researchers and NGO staff, and in 2021 it designated several Palestinian NGOs and rights organizations as “terrorist” groups without providing evidence of links to militant activity.

Between October 2023 and the end of 2024, the offices of many Palestinian NGOs were destroyed, and hundreds of staff members were killed or displaced. The active combat, heavy Israeli air strikes, and tight restrictions on border crossings made it extremely difficult for international humanitarian organizations to deliver vital assistance to the population. According to UN OCHA, at least 363 aid workers had been killed, including 262 UN staff and 34 from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Multiple foreign donor governments and international aid agencies also suspended or withdrew funding from Palestinian NGOs in response to Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, citing the need for reviews to ensure that they were not inadvertently supporting terrorist activities. In December 2024, UNRWA warned that it could be forced to halt its work in both Gaza and the West Bank if the Israeli government followed through on legislation that would ban any official contact or cooperation with the agency at the end of January 2025.

The Fatah-aligned Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, the largest union body in the territories, saw its operations curtailed in Gaza after 2007. Even prior to October 2023, workers had little leverage in labor disputes due to the dire economic situation, extremely high unemployment, and the dysfunctional court system, which impeded enforcement of labor protections.

Hamas sometimes intervened in labor union elections or in the activities of professional associations that are linked to Fatah, and established its own, parallel professional associations to compete with existing organizations, which occasionally held rallies and strikes. Since the outbreak of the war, any limited labor activity has been heavily disrupted along with the rest of civilian life, and most providers of formal employment have been forced to close.

Score Change: The score declined from 1 to 0 because the Israel-Hamas war led to the closure of most workplaces and effectively halted the territory’s limited trade union activity.

Hamas has maintained a repressive, ad hoc judicial system that is separate from the PA structures headquartered in the West Bank, which do not operate in Gaza. The system is subject to political control, and its judges lack proper training and experience. In late 2023, the Israeli military destroyed the Gaza Strip’s main courthouse, and most other public buildings had also reportedly been destroyed by the end of that year. Court personnel continued to be affected by the broader phenomenon of forced displacement during 2024.

Hamas security forces and militants regularly carry out arbitrary arrests and detentions. The court system overseen by Hamas has generally failed to ensure due process, and in some cases civilians have been subject to trial by special military courts.

Before the conflict that began in October 2023, about 200 Palestinian security detainees and prisoners from Gaza were held in Israeli prisons. By mid-2024, the number had grown to more than 1,700, with most held under an Israeli law on “illegal combatants.” The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has noted that transporting prisoners outside of occupied territory is a breach of international law. Israeli military courts, which handle the cases of such detainees, lack the full due process guarantees of civilian courts. Mass detentions by Israeli forces within Gaza have also been reported.

The Israel-Hamas conflict that continued throughout 2024 featured heavy Israeli bombardment of populated areas and the mass demolition of civilian structures, while Hamas fighters used an extensive tunnel network beneath the territory’s cities, including key civilian sites, to maneuver and attack Israeli troops. Citing data from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, UN OCHA reported in December that some 45,000 Palestinians had been killed since the conflict began. Another 108,000 people were reportedly injured. Nearly 400 Israeli soldiers had also been killed in the fighting in Gaza, and an estimated 100 of the hostages abducted from Israel in October 2023 were believed to remain in the custody of Hamas or other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza at the end of 2024. Released hostages reported experiencing denial of food and medical care as well as physical, sexual, and other forms of abuse during their detentions. Palestinians in Israeli custody were reportedly subjected to physical abuse and other degrading treatment during their temporary detention in Gaza and transport to Israel.

The legal system operating in Gaza before October 2023 did not offer meaningful protections against harassment and discrimination for women and other vulnerable groups, including LGBT+ people. Laws dating to the British Mandate era authorize up to 10 years’ imprisonment for sexual acts between men. Gaza residents living with disabilities have long faced significant barriers, including lack of access to medical and other equipment, and they were disproportionately affected by the hardships associated with the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The war further disrupted enforcement of local and international legal protections for various segments of the population, and its full impact remained unclear as fighting continued at the end of 2024.

Freedom of movement for Gaza residents was severely limited before the recent conflict. Israeli and Egyptian authorities exercised tight control over border areas, and Hamas imposed its own restrictions on travel. Israeli officials have often denied Gaza residents permits to travel outside of the territory on security grounds, authorizing only certain medical patients and other individuals to leave. University students have had difficulty acquiring the necessary permits to leave the territory to study abroad. Corruption and the use of bribes at crossing points was common before the war.

Beginning in October 2023, Israeli forces prohibited access to the sea and to areas near Israel’s perimeter fence, and border crossings were only open in practice for a limited amount of searched and approved goods, as well as a very limited number of people such as aid workers, foreign nationals, and critically ill or injured civilians. Meanwhile, about 1.9 million people—90 percent of Gaza’s population—were internally displaced as they fled areas of heavy fighting or were ordered by Israeli forces to evacuate. At the end of 2024, the UN estimated that the evacuation orders covered more than 80 percent of the territory.

Prior to October 2023, the rights of Gaza residents to own property and engage in business activity were seriously undermined by the effects of periodic conflicts between Hamas and Israel, among other factors. Reconstruction of homes that were damaged or destroyed during past rounds of fighting lagged for many years, leaving thousands of people displaced or in temporary housing. Impediments to private enterprise in Gaza included persistent Israeli bans on imports of many raw materials.

The most recent conflict has featured unprecedented levels of devastation with respect to private property. As of December 2024, more than 92 percent of Gaza’s housing units and more than 80 percent of commercial facilities had reportedly been destroyed or damaged.

Palestinian laws and societal norms, derived in part from religious law, put women at a disadvantage in matters such as marriage and divorce. Hamas has imposed restrictions on personal attire and behavior that it deems immoral, and while enforcement has relaxed somewhat in recent years, both official and social pressures persist on some issues. A 2019 PA decree set 18 as the minimum age for marriage, but child marriage reportedly remains a problem.

So-called honor killings continue to occur, though information on the situation in Gaza is limited. Domestic violence is common, with nearly four in 10 Gazan women facing such violence, according to a 2019 PA survey. Both rape and domestic violence go underreported, and the perpetrators are often not held accountable, as authorities are allegedly reluctant to pursue such cases. Effective mechanisms for complaints and victim protection are lacking.

The long-standing blockade of the Gaza Strip’s land borders and coastline has greatly reduced economic opportunity in the territory over the years. Even before the war that began in October 2023, nearly 80 percent of Gazans relied on humanitarian aid, more than half lived in poverty, and nearly 80 percent of young people were unemployed, according to UN data. PA officials have little ability to enforce legal protections against exploitative labor conditions in Gaza, and most private-sector wage earners receive less than the legal minimum, which is itself lower than the poverty threshold.

Israel’s intermittent restrictions on the entry of construction materials have hampered growth and recovery from past conflicts, and Israeli patrols inhibited farming near the border fence as well as fishing in coastal waters. Hamas has imposed price controls that may have further dampened economic activity, and Israeli authorities accuse Hamas of diverting imported goods for military purposes, including tunnel construction. Inconsistent access to fuel imports and electricity due to Israeli, PA, and Egyptian policies has hindered all forms of development in the territory.

The war imposed extreme new economic hardships on Gaza residents. As of December 2024, UN OCHA reported that more than 90 percent of the population was facing high levels of food insecurity, and that famine thresholds may have already been crossed in northern Gaza.