Student elections Wednesday at a leading West Bank university - seen as an indicator of the Palestinian population - gave the Islamic Hamas group a slight edge over the more moderate Fatah Party.

The results in the elections for the 51-seat student council at Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah, gave Hamas 22 seats, representing a slight loss in popularity from last year, when it captured 23 seats. Fatah won 21, up from 18 last year, showing a resurgence for the party of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Two seats went to the radical Islamic Jihad, and six went to a progressive student's party.

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Palestinian society and government have been largely paralyzed by friction between Fatah and Hamas since Hamas won a national election a year ago.

Those tensions have repeatedly exploded into violence, killing more than 140 Palestinians since May, 2006, but subsiding somewhat when
the two groups agreed on a power-sharing deal in early March.

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