Public confidence in Israeli victory in Gaza eroding, poll finds

JERUSALEM

A new Israeli opinion poll on Wednesday showed a further decline in public confidence that Tel Aviv will win the war in the Gaza Strip.

The survey, conducted by the Jewish People Policy Institute, found that confidence that Israel will win the war in the Palestinian enclave has fallen by 20% since October.

“Only slightly more than half of Jewish respondents are currently confident of victory,” the institute said.

It showed that trust in the Israeli government dropped from 38% to 34% over the last month.

According to the survey, trust in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was low even before the war after a year of discord over a proposed judicial reform, remains very low.

“Only 33% of Israeli Jews expressed high trust in the prime minister. This represents a slight drop from last month,” it said.

Trust in the emergency government formed several days after the outbreak of the Gaza conflict is also very low, with only 34% of respondents having trust in the government.

The opinion poll also found that trust in army commanders eroded further over the last month due to the war’s prolongation without victory.

It also found that less than a third of Israelis want the elections to take place as scheduled (30%), while a third want the polls to be held as soon as possible.

The survey also found that if the choice were between ousting Hamas and returning the hostages, 47% of Israeli Jews would choose to oust Hamas and 25% to return the hostages.

Israel believes that 134 Israelis are still being held in Gaza after the Israeli army managed on Monday to free two hostages in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, killing at least 28,576 people and injuring 68,291 others, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in an interim ruling in January ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara