New Delhi, July 10 -- RAMALLAH - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced Monday that legislative elections will be held on November 28, the first vote for the Palestinian Legislative Council in two decades, arriving against the backdrop of Gaza's near-total destruction and the deepest fracture in Palestinian political life since the 2006 landslide that ended in civil war.

Israeli permission for East Jerusalem voting, Hamas's willingness to participate under any electoral framework, and the logistics of polling in a territory where 90 percent of structures have been destroyed.

The last Palestinian parliamentary election, held in January 2006, produced an outcome no one anticipated. Hamas won 74 of 132 seats in the Palestinian Legis...