Half of US voters believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, poll finds

One third of respondents – largely Republicans – said hey believed Israel was definitely not committing a genocide in Gaza, while 15 per cent said they could not answer.

However, nearly two thirds (60 per cent) of all voters surveyed said the United States should not send more weapons for Israel to use against Hamas in Gaza – up from 39 per cent in November 2023, one month in to the Israel-Hamas war.

By December 2023, 46 per cent of voters opposed sending more aid, and since then, the number has only risen.

Respondents were also asked, “From what you know about the situation in the Middle East, do your sympathies lie more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?” – a question posed by the pollsters in surveys for more than two decades.

The latest results showed the strongest support among voters for the Palestinian people in the poll’s history, with 37 per cent saying they sympathised more with them than the Israelis, while 36 per cent sympathised more with the Israelis. One in four (27 per cent) did not know.

Quinnipiac University, in Connecticut, polled 1,220 registered voters for the research.

“Support for the Palestinians grows while the appetite for funding Israel militarily [has dipped] sharply,” said Tim Malloy, a Quinnipiac analyst.

He described the results as “a harsh assessment of the way Israel is prosecuting the Gaza campaign”.

A different poll, conducted by YouGov and published last month, found that 43 per cent of Americans believed Israel’s actions in Gaza constituted genocide.

Israel’s government denies allegations of genocide, citing Hamas’s tactic of embedding itself in civilian infrastructure as the main cause of civilian deaths.