Israelis voted yesterday in a historic election billed as a referendum on the future of the West Bank, with the leading candidate, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, promising to pull back from most of the territory and draw Israel's final borders by 2010.
Barring an unexpected surge by hawkish parties, Israelis were expected to give a green light to Olmert's proposal to separate from most Palestinians after 39 years of military occupation.
Israel began the "disengagement" process last summer with its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but yesterday's vote marked the first time the leading candidate has laid out a concrete vision for the future of the West Bank.
"This is perhaps the most important election in all of Israel's life," said Mordechai Aviv, 76, of Jerusalem. "We are going to separate between us and the Arabs. This is very important for us to continue having a Jewish state."
As Israelis voted, two people -- an adult and a child -- were killed in an explosion near the Gaza border. Initial reports by police and medics said the two were struck by a homemade rocket fired from Gaza by Palestinian militants. However, medics later said the two could also have been killed by ordnance lying in a field.
The Islamic Jihad militant group claimed responsibility, saying the attack was timed to disrupt the Israeli election. In the past, Palestinian violence has driven Israeli voters toward hard-line parties.
Polls opened at 7am and were to close at 10pm, to be followed immediately by exit poll results broadcast by the three main TV stations. Final unofficial results were expected early today.
Election Day is a state holiday in Israel, where many of the 8,276 polling stations serving 4.5 million voters are set up in schools. By midmorning, turnout was about 10 percent, the lowest for the hour since election officials started keeping score in 1973.
Rafi Friedman, a resident of the Tel Aviv suburb of Kochav Yair, voted as soon as the polls opened before rushing off to the airport for a business trip.
"Voting is not just a right. It's a duty," he said.
Security was extremely tight, with some 22,000 police and border police patrolling Israel's frontier with the West Bank, particularly around Jerusalem. The military had sealed off the West Bank and Gaza two weeks earlier, barring all Palestinians to prevent possible attacks by militants.
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