Hamas popularity rises in Gaza, West Bank, poll shows

September 3, 2014

Palestine, Sep 3: The popularity of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has risen in the war-torn Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank following 50 days of Israeli bombardment on the coastal enclave.

On Tuesday, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research released the results, which indicates that 61 percent of Palestinians would elect senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh if elections were held in the strip today.

Thirty-two percent of Palestinians would vote for Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian unity government.

The poll also suggested that 72 percent of the Palestinians favor the resistance movement’s armed struggle against the Israeli regime in comparison with the so-called peace negotiations with Israel, backed by Abbas’s Fatah party and the West.

The poll, which had a margin of error of three percent, surveyed 1,270 Palestinians.

The research center said the polling kicked off on the last day of the Israeli war, on August 26, and continued during the first four days of the ceasefire.

The Egyptian-brokered truce, which took effect after Cairo negotiations, stipulates the ease of Israel’s seven-year-old blockade as well as the provision of a guarantee that Palestinian demands will be met.

Israeli warplanes and tanks started pounding the blockaded enclave in early July, inflicting heavy losses on the Palestinian land.

Almost 2,137 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including women, children and the elderly, were killed in 50 days of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. Around 11,000 others were injured.

Tel Aviv says 69 Israelis were killed in the conflict, but Hamas puts the number at much higher.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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