Half of the residents of the Gaza Strip expect Hamas to return to rule after the war, while a quarter think Israel will win, According to a new public opinion poll published late on Thursday by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) carried out some eight months since the October 7 massacre perpetrated by Hamas. The poll surveyed 1,500 people including 760 in the West Bank and 750 who responded remotely from Gaza.
Polling was done between May 26 and June 1 during the expansion of the Israeli offensive in the southern part of the Strip including IDF control of the Rafah border crossing and as troops returned to operate in northern areas. Millions of civilians escaped the fighting in Rafah seeking shelter in central Gaza.
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Destruction in Rafah during the Israeli offensive, Yahya Sinwar
(Photo: Hatem Khaled / Reuters, AP)
The poll found that over 60% of Gaza residents had lost family members in the war. Two-thirds thought the Oct. 7 attack was a correct decision - a 4 percentage point drop from the previous poll. The decrease came from Gaza, where 57% of respondents said the decision was correct, down from 71% in March.
Walid Ladadweh, head of the Survey Research Unit at PSR said the poll reflected dissatisfaction with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has long sought to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and rejects armed struggle.
Abbas and the Islamist Hamas have long been at odds over strategy, with Hamas viewing as a failure his approach of trying to negotiate a Palestinian state alongside Israel and advocating armed struggle.
"This war, like previous ones, has radicalization effects on both sides," said Ghassan Khatib, a lecturer at Birzeit University in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
More than 60% supported the PA's dissolution, the poll found, and 89% want Abbas to resign, up from 84% three months ago.
According to the poll if elections to the PA were held, Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail, would be the preferred leader over Abbas and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. In a contest between Barghouti and Haniyeh, Barghouti would receive 60% of the votes. Abbas would lose a three-way contest expected to have no more than 5% of the vote - down from 8% in the previous poll.
If elections were held for the Palestinian parliament, the poll showed 40% would favor representatives from Hamas and 20% would favor the Fatah movement. 33% said they would not support any of the political movement or did not know and 51% said Hamas was more suitable to lead the Palestinian people.
The poll found that most Palestinians believe Israel was committing war crimes in the fighting in Gaza and 90% said they did not believe Hamas committed atrocities on October 7.