Seized Hamas documents show terror group inflated its support rates, IDF says
Actual support for Hamas, Sinwar and Oct. 7 said to be far lower than published; army says influential Palestinian polling firm uninvolved in scam; lead pollster doubts claims
The Israel Defense Forces released Hamas documents on Thursday that it said showed Hamas had secretly falsified its levels of public support in polls conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR).
The IDF said the documents do not prove that PCPSR was cooperating with Hamas, but rather that the terror group was conducting clandestine actions to fraudulently influence the results of the polls.
PCPSR, which is based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, is run by prominent Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki.
In the Gaza Strip, the firm uses Gazan data collectors to conduct surveys in residential areas and shelters for displaced Palestinians, and it is thought that Hamas was able to take advantage of this to manipulate the results later sent back to Shikaki.
The alleged Hamas security apparatus documents (English translated version), which the military said were found in Gaza, showed the results of a PCPSR poll from March 2024, with both the alleged original data and the falsified numbers.
One document, under “corrected result” — the figure that was published — gave Hamas’s approval rating in Gaza as 62 percent, compared with what was termed the “actual result” of 31.9% support; Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar’s “corrected” approval rating as 52%, up from 22.1% “actual” support; and there was a 71% “corrected” approval rating for the October 7 onslaught, up from an “actual” 30.7%.
“The survey results have been revised according to the practices followed in previous surveys, and the results have been sent by the source to the center in Ramallah,” read the document.
“Note: The attached actual survey results are confidential and intended for limited distribution,” it added.
According to the IDF, the documents it recovered in Gaza “prove an extensive effort by the terror organization to falsify the results of [the PCPSR] polls, to create a false representation of the Gazan public’s support for the terror organization, especially after the massacre [in Israel] on October 7.
“These documents are part of a systematic process, the purpose of which is to disguise the collapse of the organization, and the collapse of public support for it,” the IDF claimed.
The military said the documents “emphasize the importance that the Hamas terror organization sees in the results of the polls, to falsify Palestinian support and to influence the Palestinian public and Arab and international public opinion.”
Prominent Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, who runs the polling firm, said it was “highly unlikely” that Hamas falsified the results of the polls conducted in Gaza.
“Our Gaza team worked with us for more than 20 years. But we will investigate all claims as part of a commitment to ensure full quality control,” Shikaki told The Times of Israel.
Shikaki maintained that the IDF claim was part of a “battle over narratives” between the military and the terror group. “The center doesn’t involve itself in politics, which is how I view this: The army against Hamas in the battle over narratives,” he said.
The documents shared by the IDF said the falsified poll results were shown “as-is on Al Jazeera” after Hamas reached out to “Brother Tamer Al-Misshal,” a Doha-based Palestinian host for the channel.
Alongside the inflation of Hamas’s approval rating, the documents showed an occasional downgrading in support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the terror group’s secularist rival Fatah, which rules the West Bank.
In a poll question on who Gazans would vote for in a potential election between Abbas and Hamas’s then-chief Ismail Haniyeh, the documents gave Abbas a 22% “corrected result” — down from a 25.8% “actual result” — and Haniyeh 48% of the “corrected vote,” up from an “actual” 21.3%.
In other areas of the survey, however, support for Abbas was revised modestly upward. Thus, when respondents were asked who would rule Gaza after the war, “PA led by Abbas” received a “corrected” 19%, up from an “actual” 18.2%, according to the documents the army released. Hamas, meanwhile, got a “corrected” 52%, up from an “actual” 36.8%, while the IDF received a “corrected” 1%, down from an “actual” 11.5%.
Gaza has been devastated in the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack, which saw thousands of terrorists storm southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
The Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far. The toll, which cannot be verified, does not distinguish between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
