A new poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) reveals that 67% of Palestinians still support the October 7 terror attacks, and the same proportion believe that Hamas will win the war with Israel.
The proportion of Palestinians who support the October 7 attack has fallen only 4% since a similar poll in March.
The poll shows that the drop in support for October 7 was entirely in Gaza, where support fell from 71% to 53%. Support for the October 7 attacks among Palestinians in the West Bank, far from the fighting, actually rose 2%.
The poll’s authors noted that 82% of respondents believe that October 7 and the war have “revived international attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that it could lead to increased recognition of Palestinian statehood.”
On humanitarian issues, nearly two-thirds — 64% of those in Gaza said they had enough food for a day or two, which the poll’s authors said reflected an improvement since the last survey. 61% said that a family member had been killed in the war, and 65% said that a family member had been injured.
Strikingly, 78% said that the U.S.-built “floating pier” does not help the population. (A Breitbart News investigation uncovered that some U.S. soldiers involved in the misison believe the pier is ineffective and dangerous, and that they are being endangered for a “photo-op.”)
Fully 80% of Palestinian respondents claimed they had not seen videos of Hamas atrocities on October 7 (many of the videos made by the terrorists themselves). Only 3% of those who said they had not seen the videos said that Hamas had committed atrocities; that proportion rose to 44% among respondents who said that they had seen the videos.
On the outcome of the war, the poll reported:
A majority of 67% expects Hamas to win, compared to 64% three months ago and 70% six months ago. It is worth noting, as the figure below shows, that fewer Gazans today, at only 48%, expect Hamas to win compared to the results three and six months ago, when the percentages stood at 56% and 50%, respectively. By contrast, a larger percentage of West Bankers today, 79%, expect Hamas to win compared to the previous poll, at 69%. It’s also worth noting that while almost no one in the West Bank expects Israel to win the current war, a quarter of Gazans expects Israel to win.
A majority of Palestinians said they want Hamas to control Gaza after the war, though that was only a plurality (46%) in Gaza itself. Majorities in the West Bank and Gaza said they preferred Hamas control to the Palestinian Authority.
Yayha Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, has 65% approval, compared to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, at 10%. Also, 80% of Palestinians support Yemen, and 57% support Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terror group.
Among other world powers, Russia received the highest approval, at 26%; the U.S. received the lowest, at 3%.
The poll’s authors note: “The sample size of this poll was 1570 adults, of whom 760 were interviewed face-to-face in the West Bank (in 76 residential locations) and 750 in the Gaza Strip (in 75 locations). … The margin of error stands at +/-3%.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
