Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud AbbasFlash 90

Palestinian Authority election officials announced on Sunday that 36 candidate lists had been approved to run in legislative elections set for next month, AFP reports.

Groups had until Wednesday to submit their lists of candidates to contest in the May 22 legislative polls.

Individual names on each list are due to be published Tuesday, but the Palestinian electoral commission announced on its website that it had approved all 36 applications.

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement is contesting the polls, as is Hamas, which has run Gaza Strip since 2007.

Fatah placed the wife of the terrorist responsible for the murder of baby Shalhevet Pass in second place on its list in the PA parliamentary elections.

In 10th place on the official Fatah list is a convicted terrorist from Jenin who murdered Israeli citizen Motti Bitton in the early 1990s and was released in a "peace gesture" to Abbas in 2013.

In 15th place is a convicted terrorist from the Hebron area, who had been sentenced to life in prison before being released in the Jibril Agreement, only to be arrested again and sentenced to 15 years during the Second Intifada.

A separate slate running in the election is headed by Marwan Barghouti, a terrorist serving several life sentences in Israel.

Barghouti is serving several life sentences in Israel for his role in planning terrorist attacks against Israelis.

He is widely believed to have planned the Second Intifada, which claimed thousands of Israeli lives from 2000 to 2005. Barghouti has continued inciting to terrorism from his jail cell.

Abbas' term as PA chairman was meant to expire in 2009, but he has remained in office in the absence of elections.

No PA elections have taken place since 2006 and similar initiatives in the past have failed to result in elections.