Palestinians are increasingly questioning the effectiveness of “armed resistance” in achieving their national ambitions, with only 13.3% now viewing violence as the most useful way to achieve those goals, according to a new poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) – founded in 1988 by Palestinian journalists and researchers – in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
The survey, which collected responses from 1,200 Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip between August 20 and 25, found that 15.7% of respondents in the West Bank and 9.7% in Gaza viewed “armed resistance” as the most effective way to achieve Palestinian national goals, a significant decline from 2023, when 37.1% of respondents said it was the most effective tool.
More than half of Palestinians (55.8%) now view the best approach to achieve their national goals to be peaceful negotiations, a significant increase from 2023, when only 28% said the same.
Demonstrating this shift in attitudes, the percentage of Palestinians who said they believed the October 7 attack served Palestinian national interests fell to 15.7% in August, down from 30.9% in September 2025 and 45% in September 2024.
A slight majority of Palestinians in the West Bank (50.1%) and a sizable number of Gazans (35.2%) said that Hamas’s invasions had hurt the national interests.
Support for a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has also grown compared to previous surveys. Nearly half of the respondents (47.9%) said they preferred two states over the alternatives, a significant jump from the 27.3% who answered the same in September 2023. Likewise, the percentage of those who would prefer to establish a single Palestinian state, removing Israel, declined to 18.6% from 24.7% in September 2023.
Only 28.8% of Palestinians in the West Bank expect the Palestinian Legislative Council elections to go ahead in November, while more than a third (35.5%) believe they will be postponed, and 22.4% expect the elections to be canceled altogether.
Most believe elections will happen at some point
Though most respondents appear to believe the elections will happen at some point, even if not on the date announced by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, fewer than half (46.8%) said the process would improve the situation for Palestinians. A nearly equal portion of respondents (46.4%) said the elections would either worsen the situation or have no impact.
Trust in political parties remains relatively low, appearing to explain Palestinians’ pessimistic view of the elections. Only 55% said that they trusted an existing organization, with major camps notably seeing a decline in support over the past four years.
The percentage of respondents in the West Bank and Gaza who trusted Hamas fell from the 12% recorded in the July 2022 survey to only 6.7% in August. Likewise, trust in Fatah has declined from 28.8% to 22.3%.
The support Hamas amassed following the October 7 attack has since sharply declined, with 18.7% of respondents in the West Bank saying they trusted the Islamist group in October 2023, compared with only 4.5% in the latest poll conducted in August 2026.
Though several experts have suggested that Abbas is under pressure to postpone the elections over fears that Hamas could win a majority of seats, the poll found that Fatah remains more popular than Hamas.
Some 27.5% of respondents said they would vote for Fatah, including 23.5% in the West Bank and 33.4% in Gaza, while only 7.6% said they would vote for Hamas, including 5.6% in the West Bank and 10.5% in the Strip.
Public trust in Abbas remains low
If the poll is representative of Palestinian attitudes, Fatah could expect to emerge victorious in the elections, yet trust in Abbas remains low, at only 6.9%.
In direct contradiction with data gathered by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, JMCC’s poll found that trust in Marwan Barghouti stands at only 6.3%. Barghouti is currently serving five consecutive life sentences plus 40 years after being convicted by an Israeli court on charges including five counts of murder and attempted murder during the Second Intifada. He has long been considered a favorite for the Palestinian presidency.
Barghouti and his family have maintained that he was not involved in planning the attacks for which he was convicted, while he has expressed support for a two-state solution.
However, questions remain over the direction in which the imprisoned Fatah leader could take the PA from behind bars.
There is also growing support for Mohammed Dahlan, a former Fatah leader based in the UAE who has held talks with Hamas in recent months, while pushing for a more unified Palestinian leadership that includes all factions. Trust in Dahlan stood at only 2.7% in 2023 but has risen to 5.8% as of August.
His growing support comes after he helped facilitate millions of dollars in UAE aid to Gaza, which likely contributed to his increased standing among Palestinians.
Though the issue of settler violence has become increasingly discussed by international media, respondents prioritized the issue of Israelis living in the West Bank well below ending the war in Gaza (50.1%), improving the Palestinian economy (16.9%), rebuilding Gaza (13.4%), and achieving national unity (8.9%).
Only 7% said that confronting settlement activity should be the number one priority for Palestinians.
Though not the number one priority for those polled, 70.6% said that residents of West Bank villages do not receive sufficient support from Palestinian society when they are exposed to settler violence, and 77.9% said the PA specifically does not provide adequate support.
The Palestinian economy has struggled in recent years. Israel has withheld PA clearance revenues in response to its continued pay-for-slay policy for Palestinians convicted of carrying out attacks against Israel, and some 100,000 Palestinian workers lost access to jobs in Israel following Hamas’s October 7 attack.
Combined with the regional insecurity that has severely affected tourism, financial pressures have forced the PA to make significant cuts to public services, with schools operating only three days a week and civil servants receiving only a fraction of their salaries.
The financial crisis has led 39.6% of those polled to believe that the PA will collapse. And 58.1% said they believed that Israel was deliberately maintaining a weakened version of the PA.
Nearly a quarter (23%) said they believed that it would be better if the PA were dissolved, while 69.4% said it was important that it remain in place.