Nearly 60% of Israelis back the resumption of fighting against Hamas in Gaza: poll
Nearly three in five Israelis back the resumption of fighting in the Gaza Strip in the wake of Hamasâs rejection of a U.S. proposal to extend the ceasefire in exchange for the release of more hostages.
According to a survey carried out by Israelâs Direct Polls Institute and published by Channel 14 on Monday nightâbefore the Israel Defense Forces launched a campaign of extensive airstrikes in Gazaâ59% of Israelis support the resumption of hostilities.
Some 38% said they opposed it, while 3% of respondents did not express a position.
Direct Polls, which accurately predicted the results of the Jewish stateâs most recent general election in 2022, surveyed a representative sample of 506 Israeli adults on March 17. (The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points at a confidence level of 95%, Direct Polls said.)
The IDF announced early on Tuesday morning that it had launched âextensiveâ strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza. The Israeli Prime Ministerâs Office said the military was acting after Hamas rebuffed several proposals from U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and others.
âIsrael will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,â said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuâs office.
The goal of the campaign remains to achieve âthe objectives of the war as they have been determined by the political echelon, including the release of all of our hostages, the living and the deceased,â the PMO statement added.
Even before Netanyahu ordered the airstrikes, his Likud Party was strengthening in the polls, according to Mondayâs Direct Polls survey.
If a vote were to be called now, the Likud Party would secure 34 Knesset mandates out of the parliamentâs 120, up two since the previous Direct Polls survey published on March 6 and one more than it won in the general election on Nov. 1, 2022.
Netanyahuâs coalition of right-wing and religious parties would win 64 mandates, up one since the March 6 survey, and the same amount of Knesset mandates it received in the 2022 election, per Direct Polls.
After the Likud Party, Yair Golanâs far-left HaDemokratim received the next most seats (18), followed by the Yisrael Beytenu Party (14), Shas (11), United Torah Judaism and National Unity Party (eight each), Yesh Atid and Otzma Yehudit (six each), and Religious Zionism, Raâam (the United Arab List) and Hadash-Taâal (five each).
In a head-to-head matchup for who is best suited for the role of prime minister, Netanyahu defeated National Unity Partyâs Benny Gantz by a margin of 47% to 17% (36% of respondents said neither was suited).
When choosing between Netanyahu and Yesh Atidâs Yair Lapid, 47% replied that the longtime Likud prime minister was best suited to lead the Jewish state, 20% preferred Lapid, and 33% said neither.
The next national vote is scheduled for 2026.
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