Nearly 60% of Israelis back the resumption of fighting Hamas in Gaza: poll

Nearly three in five Israelis back the resumption of fighting in the Gaza Strip in the wake of Hamas’s 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 Israel’s Direct Polls Institute and published by Channel 14 on Monday night—before the Israel Defense Forces launched a campaign of extensive airstrikes in Gaza—59% 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 state’s 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 “extensive” strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza.The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said the military was acting after Hamas rebuffed several proposals from U.S.

Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and others.“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.The goal of the campaign remains to achieve “the 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,” the PMO statement added.Even before Netanyahu ordered the airstrikes, his Likud Party was strengthening in the polls, according to Monday’s Direct Polls survey.If a vote were to be called now, the Likud Party would secure 34 Knesset mandates out of the parliament’s 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.Netanyahu’s coalition of right-wing and religious parties would win 64 mandates, up one since the March 6 survey, and the sam...