The Israeli operation “Sword of Iron,” commonly known as the Gaza War, has now entered its eleventh month. The conflict has claimed the lives of over 40,000 Palestinians and 1,600 Israelis, displaced one and a half million people within Gaza, and left 101 hostages still held in the Strip, which now lies in ruins. Meanwhile, international efforts to broker a ceasefire continue to stall.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) claim to have eliminated 17,000 of the original 27,000 Hamas militants, including three of the group’s top four commanders – Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammed Deif, Salal al-Aruri – leaving only Yahya Sinwar, for the current leader, still at large. However, the Israeli government’s ultimate objectives remain unclear. It is uncertain whether Prime Minister Netanyahu’s formula of “total victory” means killing Sinwar to symbolically end the war, or if he intends to sustain a low-intensity conflict under the pretext of eliminating all Hamas militants (a few thousand are still active) and uncovering every tunnel. This strategy could render the Gaza Strip uninhabitable, forcing its population to flee. Despite Israeli generals’ claim officially stating that the military wing of Hamas has been decapitated, the conflict persists, with daily reports of Palestinian civilian casualties. Those who can afford to leave are escaping to neighboring countries; reports indicate that around 100,000 Gazans – who might become permanent refugees – crossed into Egypt through the Rafah crossing, where the unofficial “exit tax” is about 10,000 euros. Meanwhile, most of the population remains in the Strip, staying out of necessity rather than wartime patriotism.
Ten months after October 7th, trust between Arabs and Jews and support for the two-state solution have plummeted, with current support at about 32 percent, down from 53 percent in 2020. Despite the dire conditions in the Gaza Strip, Hamas continues to receive substantial political support. This anomaly has been a frequent topic in Israeli media, which are struggling to understand the strong support for Hamas among the civilian population.
By examining limited but reliable public opinion data from the Gaza Strip (Public Opinion Poll No. 92, Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, July 2024), we can trace support for Hamas from August 2023 to July 2024, a pivotal year marked by war. It is well-documented that before the October 7th attack, Hamas had lost considerable support, though it still narrowly outpaced its rival, the nationalist party al-Fatah led by Mahmoud Abbas. This was largely due to the inertia and rampant corruption of al-Fatah, which leads the Palestinian National Authority.
In the last pre-war survey (PCPSR, July 2023), 50 percent of Gazans favored a “permanent truce” with Israel, resuming national unity talks among Palestinian factions, and reviving the PLO. These preferences were accompanied by urgent domestic demands, including lifting the economic blockade, improving essential public services like electricity, paying public administration salaries, and addressing mass unemployment – all issues for which Hamas appeared to have no solutions. This growing awareness among the public had eroded Gazans’ trust in the political and administrative capabilities of the Islamic Movement. Khalil Shikaki, director of the PCPSR points out that public opinion has consistently called for two main changes over the past decade (2014-2023): the return of the Palestinian National Authority to Gaza (supported by 70 percent of respondents) and the resolution of internal divisions among Palestinian factions (“inha al-inqisam”). These appeals, however, have repeatedly been unmet by Hamas, which has struggled to provide effective political solutions to both the economic crisis and the diplomatic deadlock.
Following Operation “Deluge of al-Aqsa,” Hamas’s popularity has surged, quadrupling in the West Bank and unexpectedly increasing in Gaza. This rise in support is attributed to the resumption of armed struggle (PCPSR survey, December 2023), which many Palestinians now view as the only way to combat the occupation, pressure Israel into negotiations, and revive international attention on the “Palestinian issue,” which seemed to have faded from the global stage Despite ten months of intense warfare, about 67 percent of Palestinians continue to view the October 7 attacks positively (though this is a 14-point drop in Gaza), supporting the political aims of the attacks, even if they do not fully endorse the extensive use of violence.
However, there are notable internal differences in opinion: Gazans (48 percent) are significantly less optimistic than their West Bank counterparts (79 percent) about Hamas’s ability to win the war, negotiate an end to the conflict, and remain in power. This discrepancy is understandable given Gazans’ direct experience with the war and its devastation, compared to the more ideological perspective of Palestinians in the West Bank, who primarily assess the situation based on its political impact. The structural issue for Hamas is that, now nearly stripped of its military wing, it has limited options for negotiating with Israel beyond exchanging remaining hostages and relying on the resilience of its leaders.
The political landscape has been further destabilized by the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran during the inauguration of Iran’s president, Pezeshkian. Haniyeh, a representative of the pragmatic wing of Hamas, was killed shortly before Yahya Sinwar was elected as his successor. Sinwar, who has led the military wing of the al-Qassam Brigades since 2015 and masterminded the October 7 attack, represents the internal leadership of Hamas and a shift towards more hardline positions.
Sinwar’s appointment signifies Hamas’s complete lack of faith in pursuing a permanent solution with Israel, favoring instead a temporary truce. While Haniyeh was actively engaged in national reconciliation among the 14 Palestinian factions emerging from the Beijing agreement and negotiating a ceasefire with Israel mediated by Qatar and Egypt, Sinwar rejects the possibility of coexistence with Israel and national reconciliation with al-Fatah. The new leader seems more interested in negotiating a temporary ceasefire without outlining any post-war scenario, minimizing relations with Egypt and Qatar.
Currently, Sinwar’s primary objective seems to be expanding the struggle to Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, such as Ain al-Hilweh, where Hamas is gaining influence, and to Tulkarem and Jenin in the West Bank, where Hamas is supplying weapons, to open new fronts if Hezbollah reduces pressure on Israel. It is no coincidence that the IDF is now conducting continuous military operations in the West Bank, often employing drastic measures similar to those used in Gaza, including large-scale demolitions of buildings and infrastructure. As U.S. political scientist Norman Finkelstein argued on al-Jazeera, Sinwar aims to adopt the same “language of force” against Israelis that Tel Aviv is largely using against Palestinians.
The civilian population of Gaza, suffering under constant bombings and Israeli military incursions, is now also facing a polio outbreak. The extent of dissent remains difficult to gauge due to Israel’s ban on foreign journalists entering the Strip. However, a recent BBC report highlighted growing frustration with Hamas, with testimonies from residents accusing the Islamic Movement of giving Israel a pretext for the total destruction of Gaza while failing to provide any relief measures – such as air raid shelters, food supplies, medicine, or fuel to protect civilians.
In particular, many see the fact that Hamas’s leadership remains hidden in tunnels inaccessible to civilians as a stark symbol of the deep divide between the leadership and the general population. Frustration is also mounting against Hamas’s external leadership, which, from the comfort of their luxury refuges in Qatar and Turkey, appears to engage in ceasefire negotiations, seemingly indifferent to the suffering on the ground. Meanwhile, as the war drags on and Hamas’s leadership remains confined to tunnels, chaos reigns in Gaza. Armed gangs thrive amid widespread misery, attacking humanitarian convoys and looting abandoned homes, with some collaboration from the IDF, which selectively targets the remaining police and law enforcement personnel.
This collective frustration could have been harnessed by the Palestinian Authority, offering a desperate and frustrated population – now largely supporting armed struggle – a viable political alternative. However, lacking electoral support and a clear platform, the technical government led by Mustafa, inaugurated with little fanfare last March, seems incapable of taking a leadership role. President Abbas’s statements at the recent Arab League summit in Manama, where he placed full blame on Hamas for the division between Gaza and Ramallah to Israel’s advantage, have further alienated Palestinian public opinion.
Only Marwan Barghouti, the presidential candidate who has consistently led in polls for years, remains a unifying figure. Despite being imprisoned for over 22 years in Israel’s Megiddo prison, Barghouti holds a 22-point lead over current Hamas leader Sinwar (29 percent vs. 7 percent) and could fill the political vacuum by offering a national project capable of bridging the divide between Hamas and al-Fatah – something he demonstrated by drafting the 2016 Prisoners’ Document.
As the IDF advances through Gaza’s tunnel networks, Hamas finds itself in a dead end as evidenced by its recent order to execute hostages near release by Israel. Yet, an agreement with Israel on a prisoner exchange, similar to the 2011 Shalit deal, releasing Marwan Barghouti might still be a trump card Sinwar could play to regain popular support after 10 months of war.
Cover photo: A child tapes a stick holding a Hamas flag during a demonstration in support of the Palestinian resistance in Al-Manara Square in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on January 12, 2024. (Photo by Marco Longari / AFP.)
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