A day after the discovery of the bodies of six hostages in the Gaza Strip, a major strike led by Israel’s trade union umbrella organization Histadrut began on Monday in protest against the government’s failure to end the conflict.
Many cities and communities joined the protest, while others refused to do so because they are more closely aligned with the right-wing religious government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Contrary to what had been announced, air traffic at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv ran largely normally.
On Sunday, Histadrut said it planned to bring the country to a standstill by calling for a one-day general strike. The aim is to increase the pressure on Netanyahu to agree to a deal for the release of the remaining hostages.
In many cities, kindergartens, banks and government offices remained closed. Public transport was also affected.
On Sunday, hundreds of thousands had already demanded an immediate agreement with the militant Palestinian Hamas organization in the largest mass protests since the start of the Gaza war almost 11 months ago.
“We cannot continue to stand by and watch,” the Ynetnews website quoted Histadrut leader Arnon Ben-David as saying on Sunday. “That Jews are being murdered in the tunnels of Gaza is unacceptable. We have to make a deal [with Hamas], a deal is more important than anything else.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Sunday that troops had recovered the bodies of six hostages from an underground tunnel in the south of Gaza. According to the military, they had been killed by Hamas militants only a short time before.
The four men and two women were kidnapped during the Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel on October 7, the IDF said.
However, a Hamas spokesman said that the hostages had been killed by an Israeli bombardment.
