Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- The ruling Fatah Party took first place in Palestinian elections today, beating the armed Islamic group Hamas, which will enter the Legislative Council for the first time with more than a third of the vote, exit polls showed.

Fatah, the party founded by the late Yasser Arafat, took 46 percent of the ballots cast throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, compared with 39 percent for the Hamas-supported Change and Reform list of candidates, according to the poll of voters conducted by Bir Zeit University in the West Bank.

Palestinian Authority Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Shaath, a leader of Fatah, earlier cited unspecified exit poll results showing his party won between 40 percent and 46 percent of the vote and Hamas got 30 percent to 32 percent.

Hamas, which is classified by the U.S. as a terrorist organization and has staged 58 suicide bombings against Israeli targets in the past five years, would join the Palestinian Legislative Council for the first time since the body was founded in 1996. The group campaigned on a platform opposing the Palestinian Authority's efforts to resume peace negotiations with Israel.

``We need the world's support to help us get back to the negotiating table with the Israeli side in order to renew the peace process and implement what hadn't been implemented,'' Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a leader of Fatah, told reporters at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Voter turnout was almost 78 percent, the Palestinian Central Election Commission said on its Web site. Voting was heavier in the Gaza Strip, where 82 percent had gone to the polls, compared with 74 percent in the West Bank, it said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jonathan Ferziger in Tel Aviv at jferziger@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: January 25, 2006 15:51 EST