It has been a year since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis, including 311 soldiers, and taking about 250 hostages — nearly 100 of whom are still in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 people who are not believed to be alive, according to Israeli officials.

Since then, Israel's war on Gaza has killed at least 42,000 Gazans, mostly women and children, and wounded more than 80,000 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children. Israel has also been engaged in escalating clashes over the past year with Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group backed by Iran.

Israel is also launching fierce airstrikes on Lebanon and invading and penetrating its territory. Most recently, Iranian missile strikes on Israel last week have widened the circle of war, while the Israeli response to Iran is expected to be massive. US President Joe Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate facing former President Donald Trump, have condemned the attacks, once again raising the issue of US involvement in the conflict, a hot topic over the past year.

According to pollsters, the American public has long been generally supportive of Israel, and was largely supportive of sending U.S. military aid to Israel at the start of the war on the besieged Gaza Strip. But polls since then indicate that support has declined markedly as the war has dragged on. Instead, many Americans are concerned about the harshness of the Israeli government’s response to the attacks, and want the U.S. government to help mediate a diplomatic end to the conflict.

Americans still support Israel, but they also sympathize with Palestine

Last year, an analysis by the 538 Foundation (a number that includes U.S. lawmakers in the House and Senate) found that sympathy for Israelis rose shortly after the attacks despite a longer-term trend toward increased sympathy for Palestinians, especially among Democrats and independents. In an average of polls at the time, a majority of Americans said they sympathized more with the Israelis than with the Palestinians.

But today, Americans are more divided about who they sympathize with. In a September 12-16 poll by The Associated Press-NORC-Pearson, 25 percent of Americans sympathized more with the Israelis, 15 percent said they sympathized more with the Palestinians, 31 percent answered the two questions equally, and 26 percent said they sympathized with neither.

Part of this shift has been driven by a growing number of Americans who feel that Israel’s military actions in the conflict have been too harsh. About a week after the October 7 attack, a YouGov/Economist poll found that a 32% majority of Americans thought Israel’s response to the attack was “appropriate,” 22% thought it was not harsh enough, and 18% thought it was too harsh:

But as the civilian death toll in Gaza has risen, attitudes have turned more critical of Israel. A YouGov/The Economist poll in late September found that 32 percent now think the Israeli government’s response has been too harsh, 22 percent think it has been about right and 17 percent think it has not been harsh enough. Other polls suggest that more Americans disapprove of Israel’s actions, though the number may not have changed much since last year: For example, 42 percent of Americans thought the Israeli military’s response went too far in an AP-NORC/Pearson Institute poll last September, up two points from a similar AP-NORC poll in November 2023.

But all this is despite the fact that most Americans consistently view Hamas, not Israel, as the primary culprit for the conflict. In an Atlas Foundation poll conducted on September 11-12, about 60 percent of Americans said that Hamas was the “main culprit” in the current conflict, while 14 percent blamed Israel (the rest said they did not know). But when given the chance, Americans have also blamed others: A September poll by the Associated Press-NORC-Pearson found that about three-quarters of Americans believe that the Israeli government, Hamas, and the Iranian government each bear at least some responsibility for the continuing conflict between Israel and Hamas—though a larger percentage said that Hamas bears “a lot” of responsibility (52 percent, compared with 44 percent who said the same of the Israeli government). The conflict between Israel and Hamas has had a major impact on politics here at home, with different groups clashing over U.S. support for Israel—the United States has sent more than $18 billion in military aid to Israel since the attacks—in the face of a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Whether and how the United States should continue sending aid to Israel is a question that has proven to be a political minefield for American leaders.

Last May, Biden halted an arms shipment to Israel to discourage its assault on the Gaza city of Rafah—a move that prompted most House Republicans and a handful of Democrats to vote and pass a bill that would condemn the decision and advance the deal (though the move was purely symbolic and without support from the Senate’s Democratic majority). But while Republicans have been vocal in their criticism of the administration’s handling of the conflict, the Israel-Hamas conflict is also unfolding at a time when Donald Trump has continued to push the Republican Party toward a more isolationist view of world affairs, despite its unequivocal support for Israel.

On the other side of the political aisle in Congress, tensions over U.S. aid to Israel have helped fuel the National Uncommitted Movement, a protest movement to pressure the Biden administration to commit to a ceasefire and arms embargo against Israel. The group has publicly declined to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president over her perceived inaction on the issue, and the intraparty conflict over Israel played a role in the loss of two progressive members of Congress in the party’s primary, Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York and Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri. (Harris, for her part, has called for a ceasefire and said she would work toward a two-state solution.) Public views of U.S. military aid to Israel have shifted over the course of the conflict. In YouGov/The Economist polls over the past year, the number of Americans who believe the United States should increase its military aid to Israel has fallen over time, from 24% in November 2023 to 18% in September 2024. Over the same time period, the share who felt the United States should send more humanitarian aid to the Palestinians has risen from 26% to 32%:

Americans' attitudes about sending money to the Middle East have changed

Share of Americans who support increased US military aid to Israel and who support increased US humanitarian aid to Palestinians, in YouGov/The Economist polls since November 2024

A look at the battles in Congress over funding over the past year suggests that money is a big part of the fight. In a September poll by the Associated Press, NORC, and Pearson, 41 percent said the United States spends too much on aid to Israel. Moreover, 38 percent believe Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, according to the latest YouGov/Economist poll—furthering the arguments used by Uncommitted and other pro-Palestinian protesters for restrictions to ensure that U.S. military aid is not used against civilians in Gaza. But Americans remain invested in the United States helping resolve the conflict in some way, according to a September poll by The Associated Press, NORC, and Pearson: While only 27 percent said it was very or extremely important for the United States to help the Israeli military against Hamas and 42 percent said the same about providing humanitarian aid in Gaza, 57 percent wanted the United States to play a role in recovering the remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, and 52 percent wanted the United States to help negotiate a permanent cease-fire. A Pew Research Center poll last month found that 61 percent of Americans want the United States to play a “major” role in resolving the conflict diplomatically, up from 55 percent in February. That trend may continue given current events. As Israel continues to pressure Lebanon, foreign countries have begun evacuating their citizens, and both Israel and Iran have threatened harsh retaliation for further attacks. According to a YouGov/The Economist poll conducted in late September, more than half of Americans believe the conflict is very likely to spread into a wider regional war (and 12% say it has already happened).

When it comes to the upcoming US presidential election, Trump has had an advantage on the issue of handling the war between Israel and Hamas, with 52% in a Fox News poll in late September saying they had more confidence in him, compared with 45% who chose Harris. In a YouGov/The Economist poll in September, 31% said Trump’s position on the conflict was “about right,” compared with just 22% who said the same of Harris.

Still, both Trump and Harris may have some room for persuasion here: Many Americans were unclear about the candidates’ approaches to the current conflict — 37% in the same poll said they were “not sure” whether Harris was too pro-Israel, not supportive enough or right, and 38% said the same of Trump.

Overall, Trump’s advantage over Harris may reflect the fact that Trump is out of office and not currently making decisions on the conflict, or the fact that he has repeatedly claimed to be the most pro-Israel president in history, which appeals to the pro-Israel stance shared by much of his base. Harris, on the other hand, faces pressure from both wings of her party, and her role in the current administration could pose a challenge to her campaign if the conflict continues to escalate and the United States struggles to respond.