More than half of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria still believe that Hamas’s decision to launch the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre was “correct,” according to a survey published on Tuesday.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research polled 1,200 Palestinians between Oct. 22 and Oct. 25, following the U.S.-brokered ceasefire that halted two years of war in Gaza. (The margin of error was +/- 3.5 percentage points, the NGO said.)

Support in Judea and Samaria for the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust held steady at 59%, unchanged since a May poll, while backing in Gaza rose by seven points to 44%, per the poll.

Asked for the most effective means to end the “occupation” and achieve statehood, 41% picked “armed struggle,” a euphemism for terrorism.

A majority of respondents (62%) said they backed Hamas’s acceptance of President Donald Trump’s peace plan, with greater support recorded in Judea and Samaria (65%) compared to Gaza (56%).

Sixty-nine percent of respondents were particularly satisfied with the terrorists Hamas was able to free from Israeli prisons under the truce agreement, including 250 who are serving life sentences for deadly attacks. 

However, when asked about the demand that Hamas disarm as part of Trump’s plan to end the war permanently, the largest share of Palestinians, 69%, opposed this, according to the PCPSR survey.

In addition, 53% expressed opposition to Washington’s plan for Gaza to be led by a technocratic Palestinian committee after the war.

If elections were to be held, the majority of the public (63%) said Hamas should not be required to accept Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas’s demand that it accept before participating all obligations of the Palestine Liberation Organization, including its recognition of Israel.

In a runoff P.A. presidential election, Abbas would receive 27% of the votes, while Hamas’s Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mashaal would win with 63% of the votes, the survey noted. However, the largest share of respondents (39%) expressed their support for Marwan Barghouti, a convicted terrorist murderer, to succeed Abbas as leader of the P.A.

If P.A. legislative elections were to be called with the participation of all factions that were part of the most recent vote in 2006, 44% of voters said they would cast their ballot for Hamas and only 30% for Abbas’s Fatah.

Forty-one percent, compared to 40% in May, believe that Hamas is the “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people today,” with respondents’ satisfaction with the Gaza-based terrorist organization increasing by three percentage points, to 60%.

The Palestinians’ highest satisfaction rate for regional and Arab actors (74%) went to the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen, who have launched incessant ballistic missile and drone attacks at the Jewish state during the past months, followed by Qatar (52%) and Hezbollah (50%).

In June 2024, the Palestinians’ satisfaction with Hamas’s performance in the war against Israel reached its highest point since the Oct. 7 attacks. When asked by the PCPSR to rate the performance of various actors during the war, Hamas took the lead with 75% satisfaction.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas led Palestinian terrorists in invading Israel and carried out the largest massacre of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust.

Some 6,000 terrorists from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah, as well as unaffiliated Gazan civilians, infiltrated the Jewish state that day, murdering some 1,200, wounding thousands and kidnapping 251.

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