Photo: Omar Al-Qataa Agence France-Presse Palestinians walk in the rain past the rubble of buildings in Gaza City, September 1, 2024.
Published at 11:59 a.m. Updated at 5:20 p.m.
Israel's trade union center has called a “general strike” for Monday to force the government to reach a deal to free the hostages held in Gaza, after the army found six hostages dead in a tunnel in the Palestinian territory.
Tens of thousands of angry and grieving Israelis took to the streets Sunday night, chanting “Now! Now!”
The protest appeared to be the largest of its kind since the war began on October 7. Protesters said it could mark a turning point, although the country is deeply divided.
“We must stop this abandonment of hostages […] Tomorrow at 06:00, the entire Israeli economy will be on general strike,” Histadrut leader Arnon Bar-David said on Sunday.
“At 08:00, the airport will be closed, takeoffs and landings will cease,” the powerful trade union said in a statement.
This decision comes after the Israeli army announced on Sunday that the bodies of six hostages had been discovered in the Gaza Strip, the scene of a devastating war that has pitted Israel against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas for almost eleven months.
“The bodies of hostages Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino” were found on Saturday in a “tunnel in the Rafah area” in the south of the Gaza Strip, the statement said. the army, causing shock and anger in Israel.
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 to her son, Almog. She was referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated statements that he would continue the war until Hamas was destroyed.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000M. 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.”
But according to a Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, they were “killed by gunfire and shelling by the Israeli occupier,” some of them being part of “the list of hostages to be released that Hamas had approved.”
During the unprecedented Hamas attack on 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.
The attack killed 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.
“Where are you?,” protesters shouted in front of a building where the government was meeting in Jerusalem. And in Tel Aviv, protesters blocked a highway.
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 northern West Bank, an AFP photographer noted.
Loud explosions were heard near the Jenin refugee camp, which was causing a thick cloud of smoke to rise.
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 of them “terrorists,” according to the army.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, and Islamic Jihad, another armed group, said 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 Israeli police commander.
A Palestinian suspected of being the perpetrator was shot dead by the army, she said.
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