A poll of Palestinians found a significant decline in support for the Oct. 7 attack compared to a few months ago, with the offensive losing popular support in Gaza for the first time.
A September poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, polling Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, found that 57% of Gazan respondents believed that the decision by Hamas to launch the surprise attack was incorrect; 39% believed it was correct. This is a complete inverse to just a few months ago when a June poll found 57% of respondents believed it was the correct decision.
Opinion in the West Bank is more radical, with 64% believing the Oct. 7 attack was the correct decision.
Palestinians were almost fully united on one aspect of the attack, however, with nearly everyone polled not believing that Hamas carried out atrocities against Israeli civilians.
“Indeed, almost 90% of the public believes Hamas men did not commit the atrocities depicted in videos taken on that day,” the PCPSR wrote. “Support for the attack however seems to come from another motive: findings show that more than two-thirds of the Palestinians believe that the attack has put the Palestinian issue at the center of attention and eliminated years of neglect at the regional and international levels.”
Hamas remains the most popular political group among Palestinians — 36% said they prefer the group, a decline from 40% in June. The next up is Fatah, which governs the West Bank and has only 21% support. Likewise, “armed struggle” is the most popular method to “end the Israeli occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state,” with 50% in the West Bank and 36% in the Gaza Strip answering that it was the most effective. Only 11% in the West Bank and 22% in the Gaza Strip said that popular peaceful resistance was the most effective.
Satisfaction with Hamas’s performance remains at 61% overall; 75% in the West Bank and 39% in the Gaza Strip. Hamas leader Yahiya Sinwar’s approval rating is 54% overall; 70% in the West Bank and 29% in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a member of Fatah, is exceedingly unpopular. If presidential elections were held, he would win just 6% of the vote.
Also of note were regional actors — the two most popular were those engaged in direct armed conflict with Israel — Yemen at 69%; 70% in the West Bank and 56% in the Gaza Strip; and Hezbollah at 44%. Qatar had a 43% favorability rating, Iran 33%, Jordan 23%, Egypt 20%, the United Arab Emirates 19%, and Saudi Arabia 15%.
Of note was a 16-point drop in satisfaction with Iran’s performance, which the PCPSR believes is due to the lack of a response to former Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran. Hezbollah’s relatively low rating could also reflect dissatisfaction with the fact that it has held back its full arsenal thus far.
The two most popular international actors are China, with a 26% satisfaction rating, and Russia, with a 19% satisfaction rating.
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The war in Gaza has slowed down in recent months, with Israeli focus shifting to its northern border with Lebanon. On Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies simultaneously detonated in an apparent Israeli attack, which some observers fear could be the precursor to a wider Israeli offensive.
PSR surveyed 1,200 Palestinians face-to-face, 790 of them in the West Bank and 410 in Gaza, with a 3.5% margin of error.
