Israel’s biggest union goes on strike as Benjamin Netanyahu faces a surge of anger and demands to nail down a cease-fire with Hamas.
There were widespread disruptions across Israel on Monday as members of the country’s largest labor union went on strike to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a deal to bring home the remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
The leader of the Histadrut union, which has hundreds of thousands of members in Israel, called for the strike on Sunday after news broke of the recovery of the bodies of who had previously been known to be alive, including Israeli-American .
The Israel Defense Forces said all six were killed a short time before their bodies were found by Israeli troops inside a tunnel in Gaza.
“My message to Prime Minister Netanyahu is that my brother Keith and all the remaining hostages need to be home immediately”, Israeli-American Lee Seigel, whose brother Keith is among the roughly 75 hostages still believed to be held alive in Gaza, told CBS News at a protest on Sunday that drew hundreds of thousands of Israelis onto the streets.
Seigel said a deal was needed immediately for “those who are alive, to start rebuilding, as the country needs to rebuild, and those who are deceased, for a proper burial. Eleven months, almost 11 months of war is too much, too long”, he said.
While many private sector businesses were open as usual on Monday, municipal services as well as services at Israel’s main air transport hub, Ben Gurion Airport, were at least partially disrupted.
