"We expect a new, different Palestinian leadership that will be prepared to move in the direction of peace," Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told Israel Radio on Sunday.
Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which conducted one of the exit polls that showed Abbas scoring a decisive victory, said: "There's no doubt he got a mandate" from Palestinians who want "to try a cease-fire and return to negotiations."
A Palestinian election official records votes at a polling station in Gaza City. Sunday's balloting was the first Palestinian presidential election in nine years.
(Murad Sezer -- AP)
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_____From the Mideast_____
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Video: Analysis of the challenges that face Abbas as he succeeds Arafat and works for a Palestinian state.
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Photo Gallery: Palestinians cast their votes.
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Multimedia Feature: washingtonpost.com videographer Travis Fox chronicles the Palestinian presidential campaigns leading up to Sunday's election.
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FAQ: How the Vote Works
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"All we want is someone who can improve our situation," said Nihaya Mohammed, 25, a secretary in Nablus who said she voted for Abbas. "And this is our opportunity."
In East Jerusalem, where Israeli and Palestinian officials have clashed vociferously over allowing Palestinians to vote, turnout was extraordinarily low. Many of those who tried to cast ballots were rejected because of confusion over registration lists, according to election officials and monitors. Former president Jimmy Carter, an election monitor, telephoned Sharon's office and urged the loosening of restrictions.
Israeli officials imposed strict conditions on Palestinian voters in East Jerusalem, allowing only 5,367 of 120,000 eligible to cast ballots there at six post offices. About 115,000 voters from East Jerusalem were required to cast ballots at 12 polling stations outside the city.
Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital, and Palestinians consider it the capital of a future Palestinian state. The political status of Jerusalem has been one of the most fiercely contested issues in peace talks.
The Fatah political party lined up minivans and buses, many plastered with posters of Arafat and Abbas, to transport voters to outlying polling stations.
Edward Peck, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, described the chaos at the Jerusalem polling stations as "a travesty."
"Free, democratic elections in an occupied country -- that's a contradiction in terms, you can't do it," said Peck, an election observer for the Council for the National Interest in Washington. "Anyone who is concerned about American security should be paying close attention to what's happening here."
Walid Salem, a human rights activist, said he was turned away from two polling stations in East Jerusalem and finally was allowed to vote at a polling station in a school in the West Bank community of Zaayem, east of the city.
After two hours and 15 minutes of shuffling from one station to the next, Salem said that he voted for Abbas because "we are looking for peace and we want total disengagement, not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank." He said he hoped for "a two-state solution between two people living together, not with a wall between them, but with cooperation between them."
"This is a historic vote for us," said Ahmed Ghnaim, a senior Fatah leader in the West Bank who was visiting polling stations in East Jerusalem. "The most important thing is not the winner. The most important thing is to see the Palestinian people committed to the principle of democracy."
Researcher Samuel Sockol contributed to this report.
