A 58-percent majority of Americans believe that every country in the United Nations should recognize Palestine as a nation, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday, reflecting Israel’s increasingly precarious international position after 22 months of a grueling and destructive war in Gaza.
Some 33% of respondents did not agree that UN members should recognize a Palestinian state and 9% did not answer.
The six-day poll, which closed on Monday, was taken within weeks of three countries — close US allies Canada, Britain and France — announcing they intended to recognize the State of Palestine. This ratcheted up pressure on Israel as the UN and aid groups warned of spreading starvation in Gaza.
Britain, Canada, Australia and several of their European allies said last week that the humanitarian crisis in the war-torn Palestinian enclave has reached “unimaginable levels,” as aid groups warned that Gazans were on the verge of famine.
The UN human rights office said on Tuesday that Israel was not letting enough supplies into the Gaza Strip to avert widespread starvation.
The UN last week warned that starvation and malnutrition in the Palestinian territory are at their highest levels since the war began with the Hamas-led massacre on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
A larger majority of the Reuters/Ipsos poll respondents, 65%, said the US should take action in Gaza to help people facing starvation, with 28% disagreeing. The number disagreeing included 41% of US President Donald Trump’s Republicans.
Trump and many of his fellow Republicans take an “America First” approach to international relations, backing steep cuts to the country’s international food and medical assistance programs in the belief that US funds should assist Americans, not those outside its borders.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed reports of starvation in Gaza as “lies� promoted by Hamas. But facing heavy international pressure, in July the government instituted a series of measures to alleviate hunger in the Strip, including airdrops and 10-hour “humanitarian pauses� in military operations in three population centers to allow deliveries of aid.
Earlier in August, for the first time in nearly a year, Israel announced it would allow the entry of goods into Gaza through the private sector, an effort aimed at increasing the flow of essential food and hygiene items that were previously only delivered by aid organizations.
The US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), established to provide aid via an alternative that would keep goods out of Hamas’s hands, has been plagued by near-daily shooting incidents, in which the UN has said seen more than 1,000 killed as they try to reach the GHF distribution centers, allegedly by IDF gunfire.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said the Palestinian death toll from 22 months of war has passed 62,000. The unverified figure does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll also showed that 59% of Americans believe that Israel’s military response in Gaza has been excessive. Thirty-three percent of respondents disagreed.
In a similar Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in February 2024, 53% of respondents agreed that Israel’s response had been excessive, and 42% disagreed.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos survey, conducted online, gathered responses from 4,446 US adults nationwide and had a margin of error of about 2 percentage points.
Meanwhile, in a Fox News interview aired Tuesday, United States special envoy Steve Witkoff said that Trump wanted to see a comprehensive deal to end the war and return all the hostages.
Addressing Hamas’s acceptance this week of a partial ceasefire and hostage-release deal, Witkoff reiterated Trump’s commitment to seeing all the hostages freed.
“Now, [Trump] has been very decisive and straightforward… He wants all the hostages back. That is the position that we have,” Witkoff said, referencing a recent post by Trump on Truth Social saying that the hostages will only be freed once Hamas is confronted and destroyed.
Trump appeared to align with Netanyahu, who is pressing ahead with an expanded military campaign against Hamas and has vowed that Israel remains committed to a comprehensive deal to free all hostages and end the war on Israel’s terms — which would require Hamas to disarm, allow for the demilitarization of Gaza, grant Israel overall security control of the Strip, and hand over control to a body other than the Palestinian Authority.
Still, Netanyahu has not explicitly rejected the proposal approved by Hamas this week, suggesting Jerusalem is keeping its options open.
Witkoff added Tuesday, “That conflict should end immediately, 20 hostages should be returned to their families, a commensurate amount of Palestinian prisoners to be released as well, and just let’s end that thing – bring peace and solitude to the Gazan people, and rebuild Gaza as it should be rebuilt as the president has set forth.”
He did not address the remaining 30 hostages in Gaza, 28 of whom are confirmed dead, while Israeli officials have said there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others. Earlier this year, Trump endorsed a policy of mass emigration in Gaza and a complete rebuilding of the Strip, though he has appeared to distance himself from the idea in recent months.