Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visiting the West Bank city of Jenin. Photo: Reuters/Mohamad Torokman

More than a year and a half after the Hamas-led atrocities of October 7, 2023, 59% of Palestinians polled in the “West Bank” still think that Hamas’ made the “correct decision” to torture, rape, burn alive, murder, and kidnap hundreds of hostages — even including children — according to the most respected Palestinian polling agency.

The new poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research asks: “In your view, was Hamas’ decision to launch its offensive against Israel on 7 October a correct or incorrect one?”

The polling shows a continuation of the pattern of decreasing support since December 2023, when the first poll was taken after the October 7 atrocities. It found that 82% of “West Bank” Palestinians thought October 7 was a “correct decision.” In March and June 2024, just over 70% of Palestinians there supported it. In September 2024, support dropped to 64%. And now, 59% still say it was a “correct decision.”

The slow but continuous decline in support directly correlates with the worsening military defeat in Gaza. Although the overwhelming majority of Palestinians supported and still support the atrocities, as the cost goes up, fewer think it was the correct decision.

This is the current Palestinian Authority (PA) message to its people as well. While the PA’s initial response to the Nazi-like pogrom was immediate, spontaneous celebration, it has now changed its message, arguing that while the October 7 atrocities were “legitimate resistance,” the suffering it caused Palestinians in Gaza has made them unjustified. Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash expressed this explicitly when he stressed five times that October 7 was “legitimate resistance” before saying that “what Hamas carried out in terms of its consequences is illegitimate because it led to catastrophic consequences.”

As the poll shows, support is even lower among Gazans, who are the ones suffering directly from the war. Those there who see the decision as “correct” is now at 37%, having dropped from a high of 71%.

Interestingly, a total of 78% of Gazans blame Israel or the US for “the current suffering of Gazans” while only 12% blame Hamas. Coupled with that is the finding that 77% of Palestinians overall (and 85% of Palestinians in the PA-controlled “West Bank”) “oppose the disarmament of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in order to stop the war on Gaza.”

The element that has certainly remained steady is that any Palestinian opposition to October 7 is not rooted in moral rejection of the atrocities, but in dissatisfaction with its fallout. It is not the massacre that many Palestinians regret but the cost.

Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is the Founder and Director of PMW, where a version of this article first appeared.