More than two-thirds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank believe Hamas made the “correct” decision by attacking Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, while a majority want the militant group the U.S. and Israel consider a terrorist organization to continue to rule the enclave after the war with Israel.
The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll released earlier this week found support in March for the Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israel remained strong in Gaza and the West Bank, with 71% supporting the decision to launch the massacre, virtually unchanged from the 72% who backed the move in December, despite an Israeli offensive that has devastated the densely populated Gaza enclave and led to tens of thousands of deaths.
What has changed are the views of Palestinians in Gaza vs. the West Bank. Support for the attack rose in Gaza — which has taken the brunt of the Israeli retaliatory campaign — from 57% in December to 71% in March, while support fell in the West Bank from 82% to 71%.
The newly released poll taken March 5-10 counters a number of left-of-center political narratives, including the argument that most Palestinian civilians oppose Hamas and that they were as horrified by the Oct. 7 atrocities as the rest of the world.
“Hamas speaks for a majority of Palestinians. Pretending otherwise is not a policy,” said Daniel Schwammenthal, director of the American Jewish Committee Transatlantic Institute, on X.
David Milstein, former special assistant to U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, said the results show that the Biden administration “is completely wrong when they falsely claim there is some sort of a distinction between the views of most Palestinians and Hamas.”
The overwhelming majority of Palestinians — 93% — also deny that Hamas terrorists committed the atrocities against Israeli civilians shown on video, although those who had watched the videos were more likely to believe that they had.
Ohad Nakash Kaynar, Israel‘s deputy ambassador to India, posted on X, “If you thought for one moment Palestinians in #Gaza have somehow rejoined humanity since the aftermath of October 7, think again.”
“The poll conducted by independent Palestinian researchers shows clearly: They learned nothing & they still choose terrorism,” Mr. Kaynar wrote.
The poll also found that 59% of Palestinians polled said they wanted Gaza to continue to be ruled by Hamas, which has ruled in the enclave since 2007. Again, there was a split: In the West Bank, support dropped from 75% to 64%, while support for Hamas increased in Gaza from 38% to 52%.
“The change in the preferences of the Gazans, with a 14-point increase among them selecting Hamas today, is one of the most intriguing findings of the current poll,” the center said in its analysis. “But it is consistent with the increase, indicated above, in the percentage of Gazans who think Hamas will win the current war.
🚨 🚨
New poll of Palestinians (conducted by a Palestinian survey organization) finds:* over 70% of Palestinians support the October 7 massacre
* over 60% want Hamas to remain in powerSo much for “innocent Palestinians”…..#Gaza #Hamas pic.twitter.com/LwJIyQompd
— Michael Freund (@msfreund) March 20, 2024
The center noted that 56% of Palestinians in Gaza believe Hamas will prevail over Israel, up from 50% in December, while confidence in a Hamas victory dropped in the West Bank from 83% to 69%.
A plurality of Palestinians, or 45%, supported a two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, although those in Gaza were far more likely to back the idea (62%) than those in the West Bank (34%).
“Support for the two-state solution is usually linked to public assessment of the feasibility of such a solution and the chances for the establishment of a Palestinian state,” said the analysis.
Asked how to achieve the Palestinian goals of “ending the occupation and building an independent state,” 46% favored “armed struggle,” while 25% supported negotiations and 18% wanted “peaceful popular resistance.”
While the “armed struggle” option was the most popular, it was also down from the 63% who favored the alternative in December.
“Two findings are worth noting: Support for the two-state solution has increased significantly and support for armed struggle has dropped significantly,” the center said. “However, the increased support for the two-state solution, while dramatic, came only from the Gaza Strip, a 27-point increase, while remaining stable in the West Bank.”
About 1,200 Israelis were killed in the Oct. 7 attack, and more than 250 people were taken hostage, prompting Israel to declare war.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health reported the Palestinian death toll exceeds 30,000, a figure called into question by the Jewish publication Tablet, which ran a March 7 analysis headlined “How Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers.”