The bulk of Canadians do not believe peace can last between Israelis and Palestinians, according to a new Leger poll.
The poll found over half of respondents said that lasting peace wasn’t possible and less than 20% agreed that a peaceful resolution could be a possible outcome.
Respondents who claimed to have a good understanding of the Hamas-Israel conflict were also the same cohort who believed a peaceful ending was impossible.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents said that they were actively following the conflict as it began to unfold on Oct. 7 and almost 50% said they had a good comprehension of the situation.
In the days following the Hamas attack, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have retaliated with airstrikes in the Gaza strip and have cut off power and other services as part of their siege in an attempt to quash the terrorist organization.
Over 2,800 Palestinians have been killed and around 500 more died in a hospital explosion on Wednesday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, who are controlled by Hamas.
Confusion shrouds who is responsible for the hospital explosion as Hamas is blaming Israel, while the IDF claim it was the result of a misfired missile that came from Gaza.
The Israel retaliation comes after over 1,400 Israelis were killed in the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 and hundreds more have been kidnapped and are being held hostage by Hamas.
U.S. President Joe Biden confirmed that the IDF plans to conduct a ground assault of the territory in the coming days. He is expected to visit Israel on Wednesday, according to CP24.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned Hamas’ attack as “a terrorist attack” at the outset of the conflict.
The same poll found that around 40% of Canadians believe the country’s support to Israel is “about right” while 10% said that they didn’t believe it was enough.
Over a third of respondents said they had no opinion on that matter while 16% said they believed Canada was giving too much support to Israel.
Since Oct. 7, Canada has aided in getting over 1,300 citizens and permanent residents out of Israel via military flights, however getting Canadians out of Gaza and the West Bank has proven to be much more difficult.
Of the Canadians stuck in the West Bank, so far only 21 have been bussed out of the region to safer refuge in Jordan and no safe route has yet been acquired to get the estimated 200 more Canadians out of Gaza.
A majority of those polled, 71%, said they support Canada’s decision to help people evacuate, however only 57% felt it was Canada’s responsibility to repatriate their citizens once out of the conflict zone.
The poll was conducted between Oct. 13 and Oct. 15 and a total of 1,548 Canadians responded to questions created by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies.
The poll cannot be given a margin of error because it was conducted online and therefore cannot be considered a valid representative sample.
