Poll shows Palestinian support for Hamas still high

More than 50 percent of Palestinians believe Hamas should govern the Gaza Strip when the current war ends, while just 11 percent want Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to administer the enclave, a survey by a leading Palestinian polling institute has found. 

The findings were published on Wednesday by the Palestinian Center for Policy Survey and Research (PCPSR) in Ramallah and done in cooperation with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), as international alarm grows over the spiralling Palestinian civilian death toll in the Israeli offensive against Hamas, now in its sixth month.

Fifty-nine percent of the respondents in Gaza and the occupied West Bank said they wanted Hamas to run post-war Gaza, a five percent drop from PCPSR and KAS's last poll in December. 

Another 13 percent said they hoped the PA would return to control the Strip but only under the leadership of someone other than Abbas.

According to the survey, which was carried out between 5-10 March and sampled some 1,580 Palestinian adults in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, 70 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the role Hamas has played during the course of the war, with 61 percent also approving of the role played by its Gaza-based leader, Yahya Sinwar.

The survey also found that 71 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank believed that the attack on southern Israel on 7 October was “correct”, a drop of just one percent, according to the organisation’s previous poll published in December.

Read more: Poll shows Palestinian support for Hamas still high despite mounting Gaza death toll