Plurality of Israelis say Bennett, Lapid did better job on Gaza than Netanyahu – poll

A significant portion of Israelis think that the previous government, under Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, did a better job handling conflict with the Gaza Strip than the current coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a poll published Wednesday.

The poll, released by the Kan public broadcaster, found that 42 percent said the previous government dealt with the Gaza security situation better, while 24% preferred the current government’s policy. The remaining 34% said they didn’t know which is better.

One-fifth of voters for Netanyahu’s Likud party said they thought the Bennett-Lapid government dealt with Gaza better.

Netanyahu’s hardline right-religious government has come under pressure from within to take more forceful action against Gaza after terror groups there fired over 100 rockets at the country Tuesday in response to the death of a prominent Islamic Jihad terror group member who had been hunger striking in an Israeli prison. One rocket hit a construction site in Sderot and wounded three foreign nationals.

Eventually responding to the rocket attacks, the Israel Defense Forces struck 16 targets belonging to the Islamic Jihad and Hamas terror groups across the Strip. Fighting ended when Israel and Gaza terror groups agreed to a ceasefire. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir branded the IDF response “feeble” and ordered his far-right Otzma Yehdit faction to boycott Knesset sessions for all of Wednesday, depriving the government of votes from the party.

The Kan poll found that 43% of respondents were in favor of a military operation in the Gaza Strip, 34% oppose action, and 23% were undecided.

Regarding the overall functioning of the government, 42% said the previous government did a better job, 24% were more satisfied with the current government and 34% said they didn’t know.

But a clear majority of 71% said the current government was not functioning well, 23% said it is, and the rest didn’t know.

Even among coalition party voters, 56% said that on security matters, the government was doing badly, the poll showed.

Former prime minister Bennett noted that more rockets had been fired at Israel on Tuesday than during his year-long tenure as premier, which had been relentlessly slammed as weak by Netanyahu’s bloc.

“The Netanyahu government ‘contained’ rockets from Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, so it’s no wonder that the enemy continues to fire,” he tweeted.

After his government lost its majority in July 2022, Bennet handed over the reins to Lapid, who lost to Netanyahu in elections later that year and now leads the opposition.

During Lapid’s time as prime minister, he oversaw a major escalation with Gaza, which is ruled by the Hamas. In August 2022 terror groups fired over 1,000 rockets at Israel, which responded with heavy airstrikes.

The survey was conducted over Tuesday and Wednesday by Kantar Insights and sampled 550 adults via the internet, including in the Arab community. The margin of error was given as 4.2 percentage points.