A general strike threatened to bring Israel to a halt on Monday, after the killing of six captives in Gaza sparked an outburst of public fury at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to secure a ceasefire-for-hostages deal.
The country’s largest labor union, known as Histadrut, threatened to shut down the “entire” economy, with its chairman Arnon Bar-David warning on Sunday that Israel was “in a downward spiral, and we don’t stop receiving body bags.”
Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport halted departures and arrivals of flights for just over two hours starting at 8 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET), though flights later resumed.
The general strike is the largest in Israel since March 2023, when a similar mass walkout over Netanyahu’s controversial attempts to overhaul the country’s judiciary brought much of the economy to a standstill.
This round of strikes was set to run from Monday morning until the early evening. It reflects growing anger toward Netanyahu, who has been accused by critics of stalling efforts for a deal by some hostage families and their supporters.
More than 100 hostages, including 35 believed to be dead, are still being held in Gaza. The vast majority of those hostages were taken during Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, when some 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken captive.
Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in multiple cities on Sunday in one of the biggest nationwide protests since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Hamas.
Supporters have vowed a national response, and some protesters returned to the streets in various locations across Israel Monday morning, including by blocking a major avenue in Tel Aviv.
Three of the six hostages found dead, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, had been expected to be released in an eventual ceasefire, Israeli officials told CNN. Autopsies showed they were shot at short range on Thursday or Friday morning. Israeli forces announced the recovery of their bodies from an underground tunnel in Rafah on Saturday.
