More than 40 percent of Americans now believe Israel has gone “too far” in its response to the militant group Hamas in Gaza, according to a new poll.
The survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal found that 42 percent of Americans believe Israel’s actions in Gaza following Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7 have gone “too far.” Nineteen percent of those surveyed said it has not gone far enough, 24 percent said it’s been about right and 15 percent did not know or refused to answer.
The Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel left about 1,200 people dead while another approximately 240 people were captured by militants and brought into Gaza as hostages. In the months since, Israel has waged attacks on Gaza in what it says are efforts to eliminate Hamas.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said last week more than 30,000 Palestinians have died in the fighting since the onset of the war. The authorities do not distinguish between fighters and civilians, but local health officials and the United Nations have indicated that most of the dead are women and children.
The poll also asked respondents about their thoughts on whether the U.S. is providing enough support to Israel and the Palestinian people. Thirty percent of those surveyed said the U.S. was doing too much to support Israel, 25 percent said it was too little and 32 percent said it was about the right amount.
The percentage of those believing the U.S. has done too much to support Israel has gone up since December, when just 22 percent said it was too much.
The percentage of those saying that the U.S. has done too little to support the Palestinian people has also gone up since December. The latest poll found that 33 percent said the U.S. is doing too little, up from the 26 percent who said so in December.
Twenty-four percent of those surveyed said the U.S. was giving the Palestinians too much support, and 25 percent said it was the right amount of support. This poll comes after the U.S. started to deliver humanitarian aid in Gaza with cargo planes on Saturday morning.
The poll was conducted among 750 registered voters Feb. 21-28 and has a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points.