Poll finds shrinking support in Gaza for Hamas decision to launch October 7 attack
Only 39% of respondents in Strip now say assault on southern Israel that sparked war was correct move, though in West Bank 64% still think terror group made the right call
A Palestinian polling center published data Tuesday showing most Gazans believe Hamas’s decision to launch the October 7 massacre on Israel was incorrect, months after Israel accused the pollster of using falsified figures claiming high levels of support for the terror group.
The poll, conducted in early September by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), found that 57 percent of people surveyed in the Gaza Strip said the decision to launch the offensive was incorrect, while 39% said it was correct.
It marked the first time since October 7 that a PCPSR poll found a majority of Gazan respondents judging the decision as incorrect, coming after nearly a year of war that has devastated the Strip. PSR’s previous poll, conducted in June, showed that 57% of respondents in Gaza thought the decision to be correct.
In the West Bank, support for the assault also fell, though 64% of respondents there still agreed with Hamas’s decision, the poll found.
Taken together, 54% of respondents in Gaza and the West Bank thought the decision was correct.
PCPSR said it surveyed 1,200 people face-to-face for the poll, 790 of them in the West Bank and 410 in Gaza, with a 3.5% margin of error.
In August, the Israeli military accused Hamas of mounting an effort to falsify the results of PCPSR polls to show spurious support for Hamas and October 7, though the military said there was no evidence the center had cooperated with Hamas.
PCPSR said Tuesday an internal investigation did not flag any inconsistencies that would arise when data is arbitrarily altered, and that a review of quality control measures “convinced us that no data manipulation took place.”
It noted that support for October 7 did not necessarily mean support for Hamas or killings or atrocities against civilians. The group’s polls have shown the vast majority of Gazans do not think Hamas attacked civilians or committed other atrocities in the assault, despite a preponderance of videos and other evidence.
Some 1,200 people were killed when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst into communities across southern Israel, slaughtering whole families and massacring over 350 people at an outdoor music festival.
The group also kidnapped 251 people, 97 of whom remain captive in Gaza, including the remains of dozens the IDF says were killed.
The vast majority of victims were civilians, though the group also attacked military posts and killed hundreds of soldiers.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at toppling Hamas and freeing the hostages, with much of Gaza left in ruins. Hamas-controlled health authorities claim over 40,000 were killed in the war, without differentiating between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed at least 17,000 terror operatives in Gaza as of August, along with at least 1,000 killed inside Israel on October 7.
Previous PCPSR polls since the October 7 assault have consistently shown a majority of respondents in both Gaza and the West Bank to believe the attack was a correct decision, with support generally greater in the West Bank than Gaza.
The poll released on Tuesday was the first since October 7 to show significant drops in support for the attack in both the West Bank and Gaza. It was also the first to show lowered expectations in both places that Hamas will win the war.
The poll released Tuesday also showed a slight drop in Gazan respondents who said they support Hamas, from 38% to 35%. The terror group remains more popular than Fatah, led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in both Gaza and the West Bank.
