RAMALLAH, West Bank, Oct 7 (AFP) - Palestinians are to be given another week to register for the planned general elections in 2005, the central electoral committee said Thursday.
The registration process was extended until October 13 to "make up for days during which registration booths were closed and allow for a maximum number of citizens to sign up," it said in a statement.
Around 1,000 voter registration booths opened for business across the West Bank and Gaza Strip on September 4, with some forced to close down during Israeli army raids or curfews, it added.
Some 920,000 Palestinians, or 57 percent of potential voters, have so far registered.
Israel had shut six booths in Arab east Jerusalem on September 13, as the Jewish state maintains that the whole of the city is its eternal and undivided capital, banning any Palestinian political activity.
Despite being postponed numerous times, long-awaited Palestinian presidential, legislative and municipal elections are due to take place in spring 2005.
The last and only polls took place in January 1996, following the Oslo autonomy accords between the Palestinians and Israel and the creation of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority in 1994.