Most Israelis Not Bothered by Reports of Suffering and Famine in Gaza, New Poll Shows

PALESTINE ISRAEL GAZA GENOCIDE, 25 Aug 2025

Middle East Eye - TRANSCEND Media Service

Palestinian children wait for a meal at a charity kitchen in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on 22 July 2025 (AFP)

Vast majority of Israelis said they were not troubled at all by reports, with a majority saying Israel’s army was careful to avoid civilian suffering.

6 Aug 2025 – The vast majority of Israelis say they are not troubled by reports of famine and suffering in Gaza, a new poll released by the Israel Democracy Institute shows.

The survey shows that 79 percent of Jews in Israel were not troubled, or troubled at all, whereas 86 percent of “Arab” respondents were somewhat or very troubled by the reports about the war on Gaza.

“Arab” respondents in the survey refer to Palestinian citizens of Israel.

When the question was broken down by political affiliation, it shows that there is far greater concern among the left for the suffering and hunger, with 70 percent showing concern, whereas only 32 percent and six percent among the centre and right, respectively, are personally troubled by the reports.

The survey was conducted between 27-31 July.

The world’s leading hunger monitoring system last week issued a warning that the “worst-case scenario of famine” is unfolding in Gaza due to the Israeli-imposed starvation and siege.

“Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City,” the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said in its report.

The warning comes as at least 150 Palestinian children and adults in Gaza have succumbed to death from starvation since Israel’s onslaught on Gaza began in October 2023.

The low number of Israelis concerned about famine and suffering in Gaza may be correlated with the number of people who believe the Israeli army’s reporting on the extent of the civilian casualties in Gaza.

A clear majority of Israeli Jews, 70 percent, believe the Israeli army’s reporting on the number of civilian casualties in Gaza, whereas the vast majority of Palestinian citizens of Israel, 63 percent, do not believe those numbers.

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza counts over 60,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, with the vast majority of those civilians, women and children. Ministry numbers have been broken down by name, age and gender.

‘You can see his bones’: In Gaza, parents struggle against child starvation and Israeli war crimes denial – Read More »

The Israeli army, as of May of this year, puts the count at 30,000, with 14,000 of those labelled “combatants”. Israel has yet to provide any methodology or verification of those numbers.

The health ministry’s numbers are widely accepted globally, with the British medical journal, The Lancet, having estimated that the 60,000 number is a vast undercount.

When asked about the claim that “Israel’s actions are restricted by the fighting, but it is making substantial efforts to avoid causing unnecessary suffering to Palestinians in Gaza” was correct, the vast majority of Israeli Jews, 78 percent, believed it to be accurate.

The Israeli public, however, does not align with the state on the issue of settler violence and accountability against them.

Nearly half of the Israeli public, 44 percent, believe security forces are too lenient towards Israeli settler violence, whereas 23 percent think the response is appropriate, and 22 percent think they deal with them too harshly.

The majority of Palestinian citizens of Israel, 61 percent, think security forces are too lenient on the issue.

Bleak outlook

Israel’s war on Gaza has carried on for just under two years now, with lower-level armed conflict with other countries in the region, including Lebanon, Iran, Syria and Yemen.

The seemingly intractable conflict could be taking a toll on the public’s general outlook, as the survey shows that compared to findings in June, there has been a general decline in optimism across all four indicators of national mood.

Those four indicators are the future of national security, democratic rule, the economy, and national cohesion.

Only a minority of Israelis are optimistic, the survey found. The steepest declines came in security and democracy, which the authors of the survey said are two indicators that Israelis are historically most optimistic about.

Just 40 percent of Israelis are optimistic about national security, with that number even lower at 38 percent for the outlook on democratic rule.

The lowest level of optimism was reserved for national cohesion, with just 23 percent optimistic about its future and 28 percent optimistic about the country’s economic future.

According to the authors, the share of optimists among Palestinian citizens of Israel is far lower than that among Israeli Jews.

The report’s authors caveat this section, saying, “However, as the figure below shows, this does not constitute a new crisis, as these declines have essentially restored the situation that existed two and three months ago; thus, it is possible that the previous month’s finding was anomalous.”

Israel’s standing globally has also taken a hit, with the public in the US finding itself increasingly opposed to Israel’s war on Gaza and a steady rise in sympathy for Palestinians.

Middle East Eye reported on Tuesday that former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that Israel’s reputation in the US was “in collapse”.

Gaza: Family of frail boy killed at GHF site months ago still haven’t received his body – Read More »

Bennett, who served as prime minister from 2021 to 2022 for the New Right Party, accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of turning Israel into “a leper state”.

Bennet cited members of the Make America Great Again movement distancing themselves from Israel, with the country’s friends having “a hard time defending” it in the face of the ongoing starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.

Recent data shows that Bennet’s assessment of Israel’s reputation in the US is correct.

In a dramatic 10 percentage point drop since a poll from September 2024, only 32 percent of Americans said they support Israel’s war on Gaza, new Gallup polling results released recently showed.

As of July 2025, 60 percent of Americans said they disapprove of Israel’s military action, and 52 percent said they see Netanyahu in a negative light – a significant shift from a year and a half ago.

Netanyahu has also never been viewed this unfavourably in any of its previous polling stretching back to the 1990s, Gallup said, citing a “continued deterioration in his image”.

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