General strike in Israel on Monday to demand agreement on hostages

The Israeli trade union center has called a “general strike” for Monday to force the government to reach an agreement to release hostages held in Gaza, after the army discovered six dead hostages in a tunnel in the Palestinian territory.

“We must stop this abandonment of hostages (…) Tomorrow at 06:00 (03:00 GMT), the entire Israeli economy will be on general strike,” declared the head of the Histadrut, Arnon Bar-David, on Sunday.

“At 08:00, the airport will be closed, takeoffs and landings will cease,” the powerful trade union said in a statement.

© the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters – –

The decision comes after the Israeli army announced Sunday that it had found the bodies of six hostages in the Gaza Strip, the scene of a devastating war that has pitted Israel against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas for nearly eleven months.

– “Where are you?” –

“The bodies of hostages Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino” were found Saturday in a “tunnel in the Rafah area” in the southern Gaza Strip, the army said, sparking shock and anger in Israel.

Protesters hold flags and placards during a demonstration calling for the release of hostages held by Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip since October, in Tel Aviv on August 31, 2024, as part of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas © AFP – Jack GUEZ

US President Joe Biden had earlier announced the discovery of the six bodies, including that of Israeli-American Goldberg-Polin, saying he was “devastated”.

At least four hostages were buried, in the presence of their grieving relatives.

“You were abandoned, every day, every hour, 331 days (…) you were sacrificed to 'destroy Hamas,'” Nira Seroussi lamented in her eulogy for her son, Almog. She was referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's repeated statements that he would continue the war until Hamas was destroyed.

Demonstration for the release of hostages held in Gaza, after the discovery by the army of six dead hostages in a tunnel in the Palestinian territory, on September 1, 2024 in Tel Aviv © AFP – Oren ZIV

M. Netanyahu, under increasing pressure to reach a hostage deal after months of deadlock, threatened Hamas on Sunday to “settle the score.”

“He who kills hostages does not want an agreement” on a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, he insisted.

According to the Israeli Ministry of Health, the autopsy carried out on Sunday on the bodies of the six hostages revealed that they were killed “at point-blank range” “between Thursday and Friday morning”.

Demonstration for the release of hostages held in Gaza, after the discovery by the army of six dead hostages in a tunnel in the Palestinian territory, on September 1, 2024 in Tel Aviv © AFP – Oren ZIV

But according to a Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, they were “killed by gunfire and bombing by the Israeli occupier”, some being part of “the list of hostages to be released that Hamas had approved”.

During the unprecedented attack by Hamas in Israel that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 251 people were kidnapped, 97 are still being held in Gaza, including 33 declared dead by the army.

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This The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.

On Sunday, tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in several cities to demand an agreement on the release of the hostages.

Family members and relatives of Almog Sarusi, who was kidnapped in the Hamas attack on October 7 and whose body was found in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip, on September 1, 2024 in Raanana, northeast of Tel Aviv © AFP – Oren ZIV

“Where are you?,” protesters shouted outside a government building in Jerusalem. And in Tel Aviv, protesters blocked a highway.

– Vaccination campaign –

In response to the October 7 attack, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, which it calls a terrorist movement, like the United States and the European Union.

The Israeli reprisals have left at least 40,738 dead in the Gaza Strip, according to Hamas's health ministry, leading to a humanitarian and health disaster and the displacement of almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants. According to the UN, the majority of the dead are women and minors.

On Sunday, the center of the besieged Palestinian territory enjoyed a few hours of respite, as a vast anti-polio campaign was officially launched in three-day “humanitarian pauses” from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The goal is to vaccinate more than 640,000 children under the age of ten, following the first confirmed case of the disease in the Palestinian territory in 25 years.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 72,611 children were vaccinated on the first day of the anti-polio campaign.

Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, the Civil Defense reported two dead and six injured in an Israeli strike on a house in Gaza City (north).

Gaza rescue workers later reported six dead in an Israeli bombing of Beit Lahya, also in the north, and four in an airstrike on Gaza City.

A Palestinian family evacuates the Jenin refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank during an Israeli “anti-terrorist” operation on September 1, 2024 © AFP – JAAFAR ASHTIYEH

Still in Gaza, “an Israeli strike on the Safad school where refugees were sheltering” left “11 dead, including a woman and a little girl, and dozens injured”, Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.

According to a medical official in Gaza, it targeted “a room used by the police”, with the Israeli army saying it had targeted Hamas fighters.

– The operation in the West Bank continues –

Israel is also continuing its military operation launched Wednesday in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory separated from the Gaza Strip and occupied by Israel since 1967.

On Sunday, Israeli bulldozers destroyed streets and electrical installations in Jenin, one of the cities targeted by this operation in the north of the West Bank, an AFP photographer noted.

Heavy explosions were heard near the Jenin refugee camp, from which a thick cloud of smoke rose.

Israeli security forces are deployed in the area of ​​an attack that killed three Israelis near the Tarqumiya crossing in the southern occupied West Bank on September 1, 2024 © AFP – HAZEM BADER

At least 24 Palestinians, mostly fighters, have been killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank since Wednesday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. All were “terrorists,” according to the army.

Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, and Islamic Jihad, another armed group, have said that at least 14 of the dead were fighting in their ranks.

In the southern West Bank, three Israeli police officers, including a woman, were killed Sunday near a checkpoint in an “armed attack,” according to the commander of the Israeli police.

A Palestinian suspected of being the perpetrator was shot dead by the army, it said.

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