After six hostages died in Gaza on Sunday, Israel saw widespread protests as anger over the government’s inability to negotiate a cease-fire agreement that would release Israeli prisoners grew.
Protesters in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and other cities, reported by Israeli media to number as high as 500,000, demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu take more action to free the other 101 hostages, of whom Israeli officials assume to be dead.
Demonstrators in Jerusalem stopped roads and staged demonstrations in front of the prime minister’s home. The main roadway in Tel Aviv was crowded with demonstrators waving flags bearing images of the captives who had died, according to aerial footage.
Police were seen shooting demonstrators who had barricaded roadways with water cannons in Israeli television footage. 29 arrests were reported by the local media.
On Monday, labor leaders declared a one-day nationwide walkout.
At the same time as a polio vaccination campaign was launched in the war-torn Palestinian enclave and rioting erupted in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military announced the recovery of bodies from a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a military spokeswoman, informed reporters that the bodies of the hostages Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Ori Danino had been returned to Israel.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli health ministry said that a forensic investigation revealed they were “murdered by Hamas terrorists in a number of shots at close range” 48–72 hours earlier.
Netanyahu declared that Israel will not stop until it apprehended those responsible for the nearly 11 months of fighting, in response to rising calls for a ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages. “Whoever murders hostages – does not want a deal,” he stated.
Senior representatives of Hamas claimed that the deaths were caused by Israel’s failure to sign a ceasefire accord.
According to senior Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, “Netanyahu is responsible for the killing of Israeli prisoners,” as reported by Reuters. “The Israelis should choose between Netanyahu and the deal.”
Following attacks on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of over 1,200 people and the kidnapping of approximately 250 more by Hamas and other militants, Israel launched its assault on Gaza.
Since then, the 2.3 million-person enclave has been mostly destroyed by Israel’s invasion, and according to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 40,738 Palestinians have died. People who have been displaced are suffering from a lack of food and substandard housing.
Says Biden, “Hamas will pay.”
In response to growing public outrage, Israel’s chief labor union federation official, Arnon Bar-David, announced on Sunday that Ben Gurion Airport, the country’s primary air transportation hub, will be closed starting at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Monday in an attempt to pressure the government into accepting a deal.
Yoav Gallant, the defense minister and a frequent opponent of Netanyahu, also demanded an accord, and Yair Lapid, the head of the opposition and a former prime minister, encouraged people to participate in the protest in Tel Aviv.
Hardline member of Israel’s security cabinet and minister of finance, Bezalel Smotrich, requested that the attorney general forbid the strike in a desperate attempt to put an end to the protests.
Netanyahu was urged by the Hostage Families Forum to accept accountability and provide an explanation for the impasse over an accord.
“They were all killed in the last few days, after surviving almost 11 months of abuse, torture, and starvation in Hamas captivity,” according to the six captives who were freed on Sunday. Their killings and the deaths of numerous more hostages have resulted from the delay in signing the agreement,” it stated.
According to Netanyahu’s office, he apologized and expressed “deep sorrow” to the family of Lobanov, whose body was found among the rescued bodies.
However, Gat’s family claimed they would not talk to the prime minister and instead urged Israelis to take part in demonstrations.
The killing of Israeli American Goldberg-Polin, 23, and the other hostages left U.S. President Joe Biden “devastated and outraged.”
“These atrocities will be paid for by Hamas leaders. And we’ll never stop searching for a solution to guarantee the release of the remaining hostages,” he declared in a statement.
When he made this statement to reporters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, he was “still optimistic” about a ceasefire agreement.
The United States, Qatar, and Egypt have been mediating stop-start conversations for months, but despite heightened pressure from the US and several visits to the region by top officials, no agreement has been reached thus far.
Chief Hamas negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya, who is based in Qatar, reiterated in an interview with Al-Jazeera television on Sunday that the organization would not sign an agreement until Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip, including the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors, which have been bones of contention in the negotiations.
Vaccinations against polio
To start immunizing 640,000 children against polio, Israel and Hamas decided to stop hostilities in some areas of Gaza for at least eight hours every day from Sunday to Tuesday.
Palestinian sources said that children thronged a UN clinic in the central Gaza city of Deir Al-Balah, escorted by family members. According to the health ministry of the territory, at least 72,611 kids received vaccinations on the first day.
The campaign follows the announcement last month that the type 2 polio virus partially paralyzed a baby—the first instance of that kind in the region in 25 years.
The Israeli military targeted what it claimed to be a Hamas command center at a former school in Gaza City as it continued to fight terrorists led by Hamas in various areas of the Gaza Strip. Medical personnel reported numerous injuries and 11 confirmed deaths, according to the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service.
Gaza has now lost 27 people this day. In Khan Younis, an Israeli airstrike claimed the lives of two Palestinians and injured ten more, according to medical personnel.
