Almost half want Biden to pressure Israel on Gaza humanitarian conditions: Survey

Almost half of the respondents in a new survey want President Biden to put more pressure on Israel to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

According to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll, 45 percent of respondents say Biden should do more to pressure Israel to ease the humanitarian crisis.

About 33 percent argue that Biden should do more to support Israel’s security. Nearly 17 percent are undecided and 4.5 percent refused to answer, the survey found.

Younger voters have consistently called on Biden to condemn Israel’s counteroffensive and call for a cease-fire to allow for more humanitarian aid to be sent to civilians in Gaza. The new survey shows that support for Palestinians may now be growing among older voters.

Forty-nine percent of respondents aged 18 to 34 support Biden putting more pressure on Israel and 48 percent of respondents aged 35 to 49 say the same. Among respondents aged 50 to 64, 41 percent support Biden doing more and 43 percent of respondents 65 years and older do, as well.

Democratic respondents were more likely to say they support Biden increasing his pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sixty-nine percent want to see the president do more, while 49 percent of independent voters say the same. Just 18 percent of Republican respondents say Biden should put more pressure on the U.S. ally.

Public attention has become much more focused in recent days on the starvation of civilians in Gaza, like Yazan Kafarneh, a 10-year-old boy whose skeletal image was featured on the front page of the New York Times last week after circulating widely on social media.

Following his State of the Union address, Biden announced the U.S. military would be airdropping aid into Gaza and building a temporary port off the coast of Gaza to deliver supplies to civilians.

Biden, who clinched the Democratic presidential nomination for the election earlier this week, has walked a fine line since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, marking the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

He has continued negotiations with Netanyahu and the Israeli government, but Democratic lawmakers are ramping up their demands for the U.S. to halt its funding to Israel.

The survey was conducted March 8 through March 11 among 1,000 people. It has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.