Even as war rages on in Gaza, causing huge loss of life, a recent survey suggests there is wide support among Palestinians for Hamas’s deadly attacks on Israel which triggered it. Meanwhile, most Israelis are not focused on the killing of Palestinian civilians and back their country’s military offensive to crush Hamas and bring home hostages, polls suggest.

Three months into the deadliest round of fighting in the decades-old conflict here, I have been asking Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem for their views.

Serving frothy coffees in the winter sunshine, the cafeterias in the west of the city are bustling. But for Israelis, the war raging in Gaza is a constant worry.

“It’s always on our mind, we have many friends with children and relatives who are [soldiers] there in Gaza, and we pray for them a lot,” says Edna, a religious Jewish woman from Bnei Brak.

“Just yesterday we visited the son of a friend who was very injured. They don’t know if he will lose both his legs. By God’s will, he won’t,” she says.

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“People who want to see what is happening in Gaza can see it via the internet,” says leading IDI pollster, Professor Tamar Hermann, referring to the human suffering. “But the media is not bringing to our living rooms the same images as people see in Europe or other states in the world.”

She adds that scenes of Gazan civilians celebrating the 7th of October assault undermined public sympathy in Israel.

“Unlike in previous military operations, the civilians are not perceived here as innocent bystanders. The sympathy is quite low,” Prof Hermann says.

Heading towards the Old City, I find Tzafir Bracha who has come for a visit. He is staying with relatives and is one of tens of thousands of Israelis, most of them evacuated, from southern Israel who has not returned home for three months. He is still reeling with the shock of what happened.

“I think it’ll take time for everybody to understand how big this event was [on 7th of October] and what a catastrophe it was. I think most of us are still licking our wounds,” he tells me. “I think that nobody can understand this unless it happened to them.”

Tzafir believes the world should see that Hamas must be defeated so it is no longer a threat.

“We have to have a victory. You have to find the people that caused this and take them [away] from society and only then can you really have peace,” he says.

AFP Streets in Jerusalem’s Old City have been mostly empty since the start of the war

 

In the narrow streets of the Old City, many Palestinians from the occupied East of Jerusalem tell me they feel restricted in what they can say publicly. Many point out how social media posts are often monitored by Israel.

But everyone I meet is following the war minute by minute.

“I am on Instagram, on X. I follow people from Gaza,” says Haneen, a student nurse. “We all feel so sad.”

But she tells me she doubts Israel’s official version of what happened on the 7th of October.

“We know as Palestinians that Israel used propaganda, so we don’t believe what they say. We know there is some part that’s right, but other parts are not right.”

Her position is common among Palestinians, according to the latest poll carried out in the occupied West Bank and Gaza by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

 

 

BBC