Nine months of war between Israel and Hamas have brought nothing but misery. Over 38,000 Palestinians have lost their lives in the extensive Israeli airstrikes and ground invasion. New dioramas of gore and obliteration, like mediaeval apocalypse imagery, have spread across social media. Reports of potential ceasefire and hostage and prisoner exchange deals stretch cruelly over many months. At the time of writing, there is still no agreement.
As a Palestinian—although fortunate enough to be living in the UK, and not Gaza—I’ve felt both overwhelmed and terrified since last October. Not just by the suffering of innocent Palestinians crushed beneath the Israeli war machine, but also by the suffering of innocent Israelis massacred and kidnapped from their homes and at a music festival on 7th October.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3m residents have been forced to evacuate their homes due to the ongoing conflict. Most now live in encampments among the wreckage. The borders with Egypt and Israel remain closed. There has been no mass evacuation of civilians as there was in recent wars in Ukraine or Syria, although a few Gazans have been able to bribe Egyptian authorities to let them out into the Sinai. The price is extortionate—thousands of dollars per person.
A survey conducted last month by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) found that 80 per cent of Gazans report a family member of theirs has been killed or injured in this war. The same survey found that 36 per cent of Gazans are unable to secure sufficient food for themselves and their families—although this is an improvement on the situation three months ago, when, according to a previous poll, 55 per cent of Palestinians in Gaza were unable to do so.
More than 50 per cent of Gaza’s buildings have been destroyed or damaged; schools, universities, hospitals, and clinics have been devastated. The war has overloaded what remains of the healthcare system. The situation is critical. A large portion of the population is still struggling to access fundamental necessities like food, water, and medical care. Children have starved to death due to famine.
Across the scattered diaspora, Palestinians are despairing. The present war is another calamity heaped atop a long list of catastrophes that have befallen our nation in the past century. On social media, there is a widespread sense of injustice and mourning at the deaths and displacement of civilians, and the destruction we are witnessing. But the sadness of diaspora Palestinians cannot compare to the dreadful reality of those living in Gaza.
There are limitations to carrying out polling in a war zone. Conducting systematic interviews of displaced, homeless people is difficult. In Gaza, respondents might not trust the interviewer, presuming them to be gathering intelligence for Hamas or Israel. Individuals with unconventional views may fear—with good reason—that expressing their views publicly carries a grave risk. They could be accused of being a traitor or collaborating with Israel.
But the existing polling does gives us some sense of Palestinian public opinion in the West Bank and Gaza. In the same PCPSR survey, support for Hamas’s attack against Israel remains high—with 67 per cent of Palestinians claiming it was the right decision, though there has been a decrease in support among respondents in Gaza. The PCPSR is careful to point out that this support does not necessarily mean agreement with the war crimes committed by Hamas; it is a reflection of recognition that the 7th October attack has brought attention to the Palestinian cause. The poll also found that 61 per cent of Palestinians want Hamas to remain in control of Gaza, a possibility rejected as a non-starter by Israel and the US. Hamas, for its part, stated in November last year that it intends to repeat the October 7th massacre until Israel is destroyed, and a new Palestinian state—led by Hamas—is founded between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea.
Of course, Hamas does not represent all Palestinians. There are many dissenting voices across the population, and other political parties. Earlier this year, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian-American activist, wrote that “Many Gazans like me despise Hamas but are too scared to speak out.... I have seen thousands of Gazans expressing a loathing for Hamas on social media, criticising its failures to govern properly and provide electricity, employment and peace.”
The Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership in the West Bank has not joined Hamas’s war efforts against Israel. Instead, the PA is trying to achieve legitimacy for the Palestinian people via a strategy of diplomacy and recognition through international institutions such as the UN. The strategy has borne fruit—144 of the UN’s 193 member states now recognise Palestine, most recently Spain, Norway, the Republic of Ireland and Slovenia, though the survey found support for dissolving the PA at 60 per cent. The new British government so far has stopped short of committing to such recognition.
Reflecting a growing diversity of opinion, last month’s poll shows that support for continuing the strategy of armed struggle has dropped significantly. While in December 63 per cent of those surveyed supported armed struggle, in June it was 54 per cent. And the numbers are rising in support of negotiations and non-violent resistance, too—from 20 per cent and 13 per cent respectively in December, to 25 and 16 per cent last month.
What do Palestinians want? According to the polling, 47 per cent prioritise ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as the capital. This is something of a return to form. In a 2018 poll, a large majority of Palestinians expressed a willingness for compromise to reach a deal—two thirds of Gazans were willing to give up the possibility of any kind of right of return to Israel in exchange for a sovereign Palestinian state.
Indications that support for a two-state solution is resurgent carry hope for a renewed peace process once this war is over. Perhaps such a process could even provide a foundation for mutual coexistence, economic development and the righting of injustices. The truth is that the pre-7th October status quo of military occupation, checkpoints, blockade, Israeli settlers rampaging across the West Bank and Palestinian statelessness was never going to be sustainable. But rather than debating and relitigating the strategic errors of the past and the failures of previous negotiations, Palestinians—and Israelis—need to embrace any opportunity for de-escalation.
As is repeated to the point of cliché, neither Palestinians nor Israelis are going anywhere. Palestinians are a deeply resilient people. The fabric of our culture—our foods, our keffiyehs, our distinctive dialect of Arabic—will survive long into the future. And as best as I understand it, Israelis are a deeply resilient people too, with Jews having survived the Holocaust, centuries of anti-Jewish pogroms, and multiple wars with their Middle-Eastern neighbours—Palestinians, Lebanese, Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians.
Israelis and Palestinians have deep historical roots in the land; they have a strong sense of national identity, and a desire for self-determination. These don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Over the past century there have been opportunities for de-escalating the violence and building living side-by-side in peace. The tragedy is that they have been missed.
