A Direct Polls Channel 14 survey on Tuesday night revealed that the majority of Israelis believe the IDF should expand the military maneuver to Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, even at the cost of a confrontation with the United States and Egypt. According to the survey, 73% of respondents support continuing the attack, compared to only 23% who are opposed and 4% who have no position on the issue.
Among the supporters of PM Netanyahu’s coalition an absolute majority of 91% support continuing the Rafah maneuver, compared to 7% who are opposed. But even among supporters of the opposition parties, a majority of 54% support the attack on Rafah, compared to 41% who are opposed.
On Monday, an IDF strike force of ground and air units was successful in releasing two Israeli hostages from the heart of Rafah, suggesting that the city is the last refuge of the Hamas leadership, where they surround themselves with the hostages.
Both the US and Egypt have warned Israel against entering Rafah, but it appears that the vast majority of Israelis couldn’t care less.
The survey also revealed heartwarming changes in the public’s support for coalition and opposition parties, showing that the closer the IDF gets to total victory over Hamas, the more Likud voters are coming back from the center-left parties, where they were parking their votes, mostly out of frustration with the catastrophe of October 7, 2023. Now that they see Netanyahu as capable of delivering victory, they flock home.
If the elections were held today, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud party would be the largest in the Knesset, with 28 seats, followed immediately by Benny Gantz’s National Union party with 26 mandates.
סקר מנדטים מהיום של דיירקט פולס בערוץ 14 pic.twitter.com/k7ONbABq7o
— מאיר (@ON9lHvUICiNr4M7) February 13, 2024
This is the breakdown:
Coalition
Likud – 28
Shas – 9
Otzma Yehudit – 9
United Torah Judaism – 8
Religious Zionism – 5
Total: 59 mandates
Opposition (Jewish parties)
National Union – 26
Yesh Atid – 12
Israel Beitenu – 9
Meretz – 4
Total: 51 mandates
Arab parties
Raam – 6
Hadash-Taal – 4
Total: 10 mandates
Labor continues to fail to cross the vote threshold with 2.3%, as does Balad, with 2.2%.
The sample was conducted by Shlomo Filber and Zuriel Sharon through Direct Falls Ltd. for News Now 14 on February 13, 2024, using a digital system combined with a panel, among 534 adults (18+) who are a representative sample of the general population in Israel. The statistical sampling error is ± 4.5% at 95% probability.
I’m not crazy about the size of the sampling error, but I can vouch for the record of Direct Polls in providing more accurate predictions than most other Israeli outfits.
