Poll shows surge in Palestinian backing for armed resistance against Israel

Support for armed resistance as the best means to end Israeli occupation and achieve independence has surged among Palestinians while backing for the resistance group Hamas also increased slightly in the last three months, according to an opinion poll.

The poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) showed support for armed struggle climbed by 8 percentage points to 54 percent of those surveyed in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza.

Support for Hamas rose by 6 percentage points to 40 percent.

Fatah, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, had 20 percent backing.

Israel's genocidal war

The polling was carried out some eight months since the start of Israel's war on Gaza following Hamas' October 7 blitz on Israeli military and settlements that were once Arab hamlets and farms.

Hamas says its raid that surprised its arch-enemy was orchestrated in response to Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa Mosque, illegal settler violence in occupied West Bank and to put Palestine question "back on the table."

In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas fighters rolled into as many as 22 locations outside Gaza, including towns and other communities as far as 24 kilometres from the Gaza fence.

At some places they are said to have gunned down many soldiers as Israel's military scrambled to muster response.

The hours-long attack and Israeli military's haphazard response including controversial Hannibal Directive resulted in the killing of more than 1,130 people, Israeli officials and local media say.

Palestinian fighters took more than 250 hostages and presently 116 remain in Gaza, including 41 who the Israeli army says are dead, some of them killed in indiscriminate Israeli strikes.

Israel has since then killed more than 37,000 Palestinians — majority of them babies, women and children — and wounded more than 85,000, with 10,000+ feared dead under debris of bombed homes and 9,500+ Palestinians abducted by Israel.

In the occupied West BanK, more than 530 Palestinians have been killed and thousands wounded since October 7 by Israeli forces and illegal Zionist settlers, along with daily arrest by the Israeli occupation army.

Around 85 percent of Gaza's 2.4 million people have fled their homes. Severe hunger is widespread, and UN officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine.

The poll found that two-thirds thought the October 7 attack was a correct decision — a 4 percentage point drop from the previous poll.

The decrease came from Gaza, where 57 percent of respondents said the decision was correct, down from 71 percent in March.

It showed that about 80 percent of Palestinians in Gaza had lost a relative or had a relative that had been wounded in Israel's brutal war.

Reaction to Israeli carnage

Walid Ladadweh, head of the Survey Research Unit at PSR, said that the increase in support for Hamas and armed action, while not significant compared to the previous poll, was a reaction to Israel's destruction and killing in Gaza.

He also said the poll reflected dissatisfaction with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority led by Abbas, who has long sought to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and rejects armed struggle.

The peace process which Palestinians hoped would yield a state in Gaza and occupied West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital — territories seized by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israel war — has been moribund for years, while Israel has expanded illegal Zionist settlements in the West Bank and opposes Palestinian statehood.

Abbas and the 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 radicalisation effects on both sides," said Ghassan Khatib, a lecturer at Birzeit University in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

More than 60 percent supported the PA's dissolution, the poll found, and 89 percent want Abbas to resign, up from 84 percent three months ago.

While the polls show Hamas has more support than Fatah, jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti is the most popular preference as Abbas' successor, with 39 percent supporting him, followed by Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh with 23 percent.