Most Gazans would still vote for Hamas if elections were held today, according to a wide-ranging poll that was carried out at the start of this month by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of civilians in Gaza are opposed to disarming the Hamas terrorist group.
When asked which political party or movement they support, the largest percentage (32 percent) of respondents said they prefer Hamas, followed by Fatah (21 percent), 12 percent selected third parties, and 34 percent said they do not support any of them or do not know. Seven months ago, 36 percent said they support Hamas and 21 percent said they support Fatah. These results mean that support for Hamas over the past seven months has decreased by 4 percentage points, while support for Fatah has remained unchanged during the same period.
Support for Hamas today stands at 29 percent in Judea and Samaria (compared to 37 percent seven months ago) and for Fatah at 18 percent (compared to 18 percent seven months ago).
In Gaza, support for Hamas stands at 37 percent (compared to 35 percent seven months ago) and support for Fatah at 25 percent (compared to 26 percent seven months ago).
Most of the questions in the poll, covering the first four months of 2025, focused on the events of October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists and their followers invaded Israel, tortured and slaughtered 1,200 people and abducted 251 others.
Half of the respondents in the current poll still view the decision by Hamas to carry out the attack as “correct.” Of those, 59 percent in Judea and Samaria support the decision; 38 percent of Gazans say the decision was correct. The numbers represent a steady but small decline from those of the previous polls.
An overwhelming majority of respondents – 85 percent in Judea and Samaria, and 64 percent in Gaza – said they were opposed to the disarmament of Hamas in Gaza in order to stop the war; just 18 percent supported it.
When asked whether it supports or opposed the eviction of some Hamas military leaders from the Gaza Strip if that was a condition for stopping the war, 65 percent said they oppose it and 31 percent support it. Support for this step stands at 47 percent in Gaza and just 20 percent in Judea and Samaria.
Sixty-four percent of the public continues to believe the attack and the resulting war have placed the “Palestinian issue” at the center of global attention.
Eighty-seven percent of respondents still believe that Hamas men did not commit the atrocities depicted in the videos that they themselves uploaded to media on Oct. 7 – just nine percent said Hamas did commit the atrocities.
Unlike previous findings, however, the poll this time found that most of the public does not believe Hamas will win the war against Israel.
A majority of 56 percent (65 percent in Judea and Samaria and 42 percent in Gaza) expect Hamas and Israel to reach a ceasefire agreement in a few days; 41 percent do not expect that.
“As we did in our previous four polls since the war, we asked in the current poll about the party that will emerge victorious in this war: 43 percent of the public expects Hamas to win, compared to 50 percent seven months ago and 67 percent 10 months ago.
“It is worth noting that fewer Gazans, at just 23 percent today, expect Hamas to win compared to the results seven and 10 months ago, when those percentages stood at 28 percent, 48 percent, and 56 percent respectively,” the researchers said.
“Hamas’s expectation of victory has also dropped in the West Bank, where today it stands at only 56 percent compared to 65 percent seven months ago and 79 percent ten months ago. It is also worth noting that while 6 percent in the West Bank expect Israel to win the current war, 29 percent of Gazans expect Israel to win.”
More than half of Gazans (52 percent) say they have lost a family member during the war – and the majority blames Israel and the US for their suffering, rather than Hamas.
“It is worth noting that the percentage of Gazans blaming Hamas stood at 18 percent in the current poll, compared to 23 percent seven months ago,” the researchers said.
A large minority of respondents (43 percent) said they want to leave Gaza after the war ends, and about half (51 percent) are willing to apply to Israel to help them emigrate to other countries via Israeli ports and airports.
To view the complete findings, click here.
The survey, conducted between May 1-4, queried 1,270 people, including 830 face-to-face interviews in Judea and Samaria, and 440 in Gaza, in 44 locations. The margin of error stands at +/- 3.5 percent.
