Now it's final: Interior Minister Moshe Arbel announced this evening (Monday) that the elections for local authorities will be held in most of the country on January 30, after they were postponed from the original date of October 31 due to the war in Gaza. However, it was said that in every settlement that was evacuated - the elections will be held only five months after the residents return.
As a reminder, in the bill to postpone the elections approved by the Knesset, it was determined that the elections would be held on January 30, but could be postponed again by a month to February 27 if necessary. In his statement Arbel said that "after I held a discussion with the professional officials at the Ministry of the Interior and examined the positions of the security officials as they were presented to me, I came to the general conclusion that I do not intend to act to postpone the date of the general elections."
These are the localities where the elections will be postponed
However, it was stated that it will not be possible to hold the elections on time in the 14 municipalities where the residents were evacuated due to the war, and as a result a new date will be set for the elections in these municipalities, which will be "not earlier than 150 days from the date when the evacuation of the residents ends, and in a way that allows, against the background of the long period that will pass, the execution of the election procedure from its beginning."
The list of municipalities where the elections will be postponed includes 9 regional councils: Eshkol, Upper Galilee, Ashkelon Beach, Mevo'ot Hermon, Mateh Asher, Ma'ale Yosef, Marom Galil, Sdot Negev and Shaar HaNegev. 3 local councils were also included - Metula, Ajer and Shlomi, and the cities of Sderot and Kiryat Shmona.
