Some 68% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza do not want Hamas to resume its rocket attacks on Israel, while 25.5% believe the attacks against Israel's southern communities should be resumed, according to a survey conducted by the Ramallah-based Arab World for Research & Development (AWRAD) organization.
The poll's findings, which are based on answers by 1,200 respondents, indicate that 35.4% of Palestinians residing in Hamas-ruled Gaza are interested in resuming the attacks, while only 19.5% of Palestinians in the West Bank share this opinion.
Some 66% of all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank want Hamas to continue upholding the unofficial ceasefire declared following Israel's offensive in Gaza ,while 25.7% hope the Islamist group will violate the truce.
According to the survey, if elections for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority were held today, reigning president Mahmoud Abbas wouldbe re-elected with 30.9% of the votes, 14.3% of Palestinians would vote for Marwan Barghouti (currently serving five life sentences in Israel), 10.4% would vote for Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, while Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad would receive only 8.4% of the votes.
Abbas has already announced his plans to retire, and Barghouti has been mentioned as one of the so-called heavy prisoners Hamas wants Israel to release in exchange for captive soldier Gilad Shalit.
Asked who they would vote for in case Abbas does retire, 26.5% of respondents said Barghouti, 20.6% said they would vote for Fayyad, while 12% said they would support Haniyeh.
As for the peace process, the poll showed that 47.6% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are in favor of direct negotiations with Israel, while 46.6% are against direct talks.
Some 51% of the West Bank's Palestinians and 41% of those residing in Gaza support direct talks, the poll showed.
The survey also found that 26.6% of Palestinians believe Palestinian society is heading in the right direction, while 67.2% believe the contrary.
The survey showed that the residents of Gaza are more pessimistic than the West Bank's Palestinians: 79.8% of Gaza's Palestinians believe Palestinian society is deteriorating, while only 59.7% of Palestinians in the West Bank share this view.