The terrorist group Hamas made a strong showing in the first municipal elections held in the Palestinian territories since 1976 according to preliminary results from the 26 communities which voted yesterday.

Unofficial results from the Associated Press have the late Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement winning a majority in 14 of the 26 towns that voted while Hamas has control in nine areas. Two communities were won by a joint Hamas-Fatah slate and one community was too close to call.

Officials of Hamas claim to have won a majority on at least 17 of the councils although the membership of some of those running for office is not exactly known which could be the reason for the discrepancy.

Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman from Gaza indicated that his group was willing to work with Fatah on the local level. 'The coming stage is one of development and rebuilding our society, and we will cooperate with everyone to strengthen our society,' he said.

Turnout was extremely high in the election and polls in many hours stayed open for two hours longer than scheduled to accomodate voters. Analysts say the high turnout probably helped Hamas.

Regardless of the outcome, Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei was pleased by the elections. 'This is a first step towards democracy and the establishment of our future state,' he said enthusiastically when casting his ballot yesterday.

Hamas has announced that they will boycott the presidential elections scheduled for January 9th. The more moderate Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah is the favorite to win that election.