Court orders striking Israelis back to work as anger over hostages builds

Israel’s Labour Court has ruled that a general strike that shut much of the country’s economy must end by 2.30pm (9.30pm AEST), according to court documents seen by Reuters.

Israel’s main trade union launched the strike action on Monday to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into agreeing to a ceasefire deal in Gaza after the deaths of six hostages held by Hamas triggered mass protests across the country.

Striking Israelis took to the streets in what was viewed as their strongest push yet to force Netanyahu’s government to end the war in Gaza.

Civil servants at several ministries stayed at home or went out to protest, while many post offices and banks were closed, and university lectures were cancelled. Ben Gurion, the country’s main airport, suspended take-offs between 8am and 10am Israeli time.

The government took legal action to try to stop the strikes from spreading.

Anger is rising in Israel after the bodies of six hostages were found in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip. Each was shot repeatedly from short range, not long before being discovered, medical examiners said.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in cities around the nation on Sunday in what appeared to be the largest protests since the October 7 attacks by Hamas that triggered the war in Gaza.

Both the protests and strikes reflect deep anger at Netanyahu, who critics say is prolonging the war – and thus reducing the chances of early elections – rather than prioritising the safe return of the roughly 100 remaining Gaza hostages. The military conflict has already spread to the West Bank and to neighbouring Lebanon, threatening to engulf the region in a wider war.

Netanyahu has “been driven primarily by a desire to retain power with a narrow, very radical messianic coalition in the Israeli government,” said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, a 36-year-old Israeli-American.

“He’s preferred that, at least to date, over the wellbeing of all the hostages,” Dekel-Chen said on Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation.

Despite the pressure, there was no sign Netanyahu was prepared to shift course.

“Those who murder hostages do not want a deal,” he said in a statement on Sunday. “We will pursue you, we will find you, and we will settle accounts with you.”

A security cabinet meeting ended Sunday evening without action on a proposal from Defence Minister Yoav Gallant to drop Netanyahu’s insistence that Israeli troops remained in the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt – a key sticking point in talks with Hamas, two officials told Bloomberg.

Gallant had warned in a cabinet meeting last week that not dropping the demand would amount to the execution of hostages.

Netanyahu has defended his stance as necessary to ensure that Hamas doesn’t use a truce to rearm, regroup, and weather the Israeli campaign to destroy it. Should Hamas endure, government officials have warned, it would spell more hostage-taking in the future.

US President Joe Biden said on Saturday that he believed “we’re on the verge of having an agreement,” though the last active talks broke up inconclusively in Cairo last weekend.

Protesters blocked roads in Tel Aviv to call for a deal to release the hostages held by Hamas.Credit: AP

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will meet on Monday morning local time with the US team trying to broker a hostage deal, according to the White House.

The Washington Post reported that the US has been talking to Egypt and Qatar about the outline of a take-it-or-leave-it deal to present to Israel and Hamas, citing an unidentified senior administration official.

“It is no longer possible to stand idly by,” Arnon Bar-David, the chair of Histadrut, a labour group representing the majority of Israel’s trade unionists, said on Sunday when calling for a general strike. “This thing – of Jews being murdered in the tunnels of Gaza – is unconscionable, and it has to stop. A deal must be reached, and a deal is more important than anything else.”

Israel’s finance minister said he asked for a court injunction against the strike and warned civil servants they would not be paid for time off taken to participate.

The slain hostages included Israeli-US citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23. His parents became among the most high-profile advocates for the hostages, meeting Biden and other world leaders and speaking at last week’s US Democratic National Convention to a standing ovation.

Biden spoke to his parents, Rachel and Jon, on Sunday, a White House official said.

“For 11 months, the Israeli government led by Netanyahu failed to do what a government is expected to do – bring its sons & daughters home,” the Hostage Families Forum posted on X. “If it weren’t for his thwarting, excuses & spin, the hostages whose deaths were announced this morning would probably be alive.”

Another of the killed hostages was Carmel Gat, 40, an occupational therapist. She was abducted on October 7 from her parents’ home in Kibbutz Be’eri, a collective farming community. Her mother was killed in the attack. Some hostages released earlier said she’d helped them enormously in captivity, teaching them yoga and meditation.

The other victims were Eden Yerushalmi, 24, who was studying to be a Pilates instructor; Alexander Lobanov, 33, a married father of two who had been working at a music festival that was attacked by Hamas gunmen; Almog Sarusi, 27, who was at the festival with his girlfriend, who was wounded; and Ori Danino, 25, the oldest of five siblings, who was planning to begin studies in electrical engineering.

An Israeli police officer removes a demonstrator blocking a road during a protest calling for a deal to release the remaining Gaza hostages.Credit: AP

Hamas said the hostages were killed by Israeli bombs.

About 250 people were abducted on October 7 when Hamas stormed into southern Israel, killing 1200 people. More than 100 hostages were freed during a ceasefire late last year, and about 100 more remain in captivity, including 35 declared dead in absentia by Israel.

More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Bloomberg, Reuters

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