Comment by edanm

That's inaccurate, Hamas won the 2006 legislative election. The reason they fought a civil war was because Fatah (with the backing of US and I think Israel) was trying to take control over Gaza despite the elections, and they fought to "keep control" of it.

From Wikipedia: > The Palestinian legislative election took place on 25 January 2006 and was judged to be free and fair by international observers.[18][19] It resulted in a Hamas victory, surprising Israel and the United States, which had expected their favoured partner, Fatah, to retain power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaza_(2007)#2006_Pal...