How do Israelis see Gaza war, Palestinian suffering? – DW – 08/12/2025

DW

10 hours ago

Public opposition to the Israeli government's military campaign in Gaza is growing. But this has more to do with freeing the hostages and saving soldiers' lives than ending Palestinian suffering, various polls suggest.
As the Israeli government works on expanding its military campaign in the occupied Gaza Strip, it is coming under increasing domestic criticism.
Over the weekend, the country saw some of the biggest protests against the ongoing military campaign in Gaza, with tens of thousands of Israelis on the streets.
There are still around 50 Israeli hostages being held by the militant Hamas group inside the Gaza Strip, and their families fear President Benjamin Netanyahu's new Gaza plan will only further endanger their loved ones.
"We know that a decision to occupy more land is going to put the lives of the hostages at risk," Gil Dickmann, the cousin of hostage Carmel Gat, who was killed by her captors, told DW. "That's exactly what happened to Carmel. She was in Rafah, they [the Israeli army] decided to occupy Rafah. Her guards decided to execute her and [five] other hostages," Dickmann said.
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"We know that the only way to get them back alive is with a deal [for] all of them," added Naama Shueka, a cousin of Evyatar David, the Israeli hostage recently seen in a video released by Hamas. "So we are shouting: Please stop [the fighting]. Please save our loved ones. Please don't let them starve to death."
The number of Israelis who agree with the hostages' families is growing.
Ongoing surveys by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), a non-partisan think tank, show how attitudes have changed. In mid-October 2023, shortly after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, only 17% of Israelis thought their government should negotiate to free the hostages, even if that meant ending the fighting. By the anniversary of the attack, 53% felt that way.
In mid-July this year, a poll conducted by local Israeli media outlet Channel 12 showed that 74% of Israelis supported their government reaching an agreement with Hamas in order to free all the hostages and end fighting in Gaza.
While the majority of Israelis say they want to get the hostages back, save Israeli soldiers' lives and disapprove of the Netanyahu's government's conduct, other research indicates they don't feel much sympathy for Palestinians, nor do they like the idea of cooperating with them.
For an IDI survey conducted at the end of July, researchers asked, "to what extent are you personally troubled or not troubled by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza?"
Over three-quarters of Jewish Israelis — 79% — were not that troubled or not troubled at all. Jewish Israelis also said they believe the Israeli military is doing enough to avoid unnecessary suffering. Arab Israelis took the opposite view, with 86% being very or somewhat troubled by reports of famine and suffering.
In the past, the IDI has also asked Israelis about the most important reason for ending the war. Over half said it was important to free the remaining hostages. Only 6% argued the war should end because "of the great cost in human life" and a desire for peace.
It is true that more people are now talking about what's happening in Gaza, one Tel Aviv resident told DW. This resident requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "But the general focus is on the hostages and the soldiers and a reluctance to become embroiled in an endless war."
Gazans and Israelis are living very different realities, they noted. "Then again, the 17-year blockade of Gaza, with all its devastating consequences for the population before the war — and just an hour's drive from Tel Aviv — also didn't really interest people in Israel," the Tel Aviv resident said.
In March 2025, Tamir Sorek, a professor at Pennsylvania State University who studies how culture relates to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, commissioned a poll which found 82% of Jewish Israelis could imagine having Palestinians expelled from Gaza completely. Judging by that March 2025 poll, Sorek concluded that what were once considered marginal, extremist attitudes about the Palestinians had now migrated to the Israeli mainstream.
"They date back to the 1930s," Sorek wrote, "and have gained steam — and more public acceptance — as prospects for peace fell apart in the 1990s, existential anxiety among Israelis has grown, and religious Zionists have gained more political power in the 21st century."
A March 2025 poll by the US' Pew Research Center found only 21% of Israelis think Israel and a Palestinian state can coexist peacefully, part of the so-called two-state solution. That was the lowest percentage since 2013, researchers wrote.
Recent on-the-ground reporting on ordinary Israelis' attitudes by international journalists from the likes of the UK's BBC , the New York Times and Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung supports those findings.Israeli author Etgar Keret has been protesting what his government is doing for months now and is pleased that more of his countrypeople are now joining in the criticism. Although, he told DW, "I must say that I would want the people fighting by my side to be fighting for some kind of universal, liberal, human-loving reason. But even if they don't, we still basically want the same thing."
Keret also tried to explain why Israelis are less concerned about the plight of Palestinians. "There are people who are shell shocked and scared and don't know what Netanyahu is doing, and they're just moving from one spin [by Netanyahu] to another," he argued. "If you watch the news in Israel, week after week, they'll say the opposite things. Nothing is consistent and very little makes sense."
Most Israelis get their information from social media anyway, where images of Gaza are widely shared. Over three-quarters of Israelis say they've seen many or a few "pictures or videos showing the widespread destruction in Gaza," according to another IDI survey from April 2025.