In Israel, thousands honored Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a California native and the only U.S. citizen among six hostages found killed in Gaza.
Tearful funerals, furious political rhetoric, striking workers: Israel’s deep divisions over the war in Gaza were on full view Monday, galvanized by the killings of six Israeli hostages whose release had seemed tantalizingly within reach.
A day after the country learned of the deaths of the six, whose bodies were recovered over the weekend from a tunnel beneath southern Gaza, pressure intensified on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to strike an accord to free what may be dozens of living captives still held by Hamas and other Palestinian militants. Israel said the hostages had been killed execution style, shot at close range.
For the first time since the war broke out nearly 11 months ago, Israel’s largest labor federation called a general strike to protest the lack of a hostage deal. By mid-afternoon, an Israeli court had curtailed the walkout, which had been observed unevenly across the country, causing some disruptions but falling well short of paralyzing work stoppages.
Instead, much of the country’s attention was fixated elsewhere: on a round of funerals scattered across the country. In Jerusalem, thousands turned out to pay tribute to Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Berkeley native who was the only U.S. citizen among the six.
“Now I no longer have to worry about you — you are no longer in danger,” his mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, said in a eulogy addressed to her dead son.
Referring to the final text message to his parents on Oct. 7, when he was taken hostage after fleeing a music festival that came under attack by Hamas-led militants, she said, “You wrote to us ‘I’m sorry,’ because you knew how crushing it would be for us to lose you.
