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As war rages on, support for Hamas plummets in Gaza Strip

According to one Palestinian polling organization, only 24% of the coastal enclave’s residents have a positive view of Hamas’ performance.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

After nine months of war, Hamas is losing support in Gaza, an NBC report said Saturday.

The American news crew filmed a woman who had just discovered the body of her son, killed in an Israeli airstrike. She directed her anguished fury at the Muslim extremists who set off the war on October 7 by invading Israel and massacring 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, including the elderly and infants.

“I hope that God will destroy you, Hamas, like you destroyed our children,” the reporter translated as she screamed with tears running down her face.

Two female companions quickly led her away, with one briefly raising her hand to try to cover the mother’s mouth and countering that her son had died as a martyr.

In another clip shown in the report, which went viral when first publicized a month ago, a man is standing in a crowd saying tearfully, “We have a filthy leadership, they got used to our bloodshed. May God curse them. They are scum.”

One opposition activist willing to go on record, Itaf Al-Hamran, told the news outlet, “Today Hamas has taken us 70 years back.”

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The report cited a poll taken in late May by the Palestinian Authority-based Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD), in which both Gazans and PA residents were asked about their views of the war.

Only 21% of Gazans said they either “strongly” or “somewhat” support the decision by Hamas to attack Israel, with 57% strongly opposing it.

This is a sharp decline from AWRAD’s previous poll in November, when nearly half of the Gazans polled backed Hamas’ decision.

By contrast, fully 62% of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria were still in favor of the decision.

There is also a huge difference in the opinions of the two regions’ residents when it comes to evaluating Hamas’ overall performance. While in the PA 76% view it positively, barely a quarter (24%) think the same in Gaza.

This reflected an overall decline from 76% approval in November to 55% today.

There was also great disparity when it came to whom the respondents trusted the most to lead recovery and rebuilding efforts in the coastal enclave after the conflict ended.

The Gazans revealed massive distrust of their current leaders, with only 1% voting for Hamas. They trust the UN the most by far, with 71% choosing the international body. The PA came in a distant second at 15%.

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Only 6% of PA Arabs chose their own government to lead recovery efforts, with the UN selected by 32% and Hamas by 23%. Community leaders, Palestinian NGOs and Arab states were the next most popular possibilities, with 11%, 10% and 8% respectively.

The survey, which polled 1,500 people, 60% in Judea and Samaria and 40% in Gaza, diverges widely from a June poll taken by The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research which surveyed a similar number of people in both regions.

In that poll, 57% of Gazans said they thought that Hamas was right to invade Israel, and 64% of them were “satisfied” with Hamas’ performance in the ongoing war. The numbers in the PA were even higher.

One thing the survey organizations had in common was the poor showing of the PA in both regions. The widespread unpopularity of President Mahmoud Abbas’ government was borne out in the answers to several other questions asked by both groups on the subject.