Pressure is mounting in Israel for the government to accept a Gaza ceasefire after the bodies of six hostages, reportedly killed by Hamas in captivity, were retrieved by soldiers from a Rafah tunnel.
The hostages were Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino.
Hundreds of thousands joined demonstrations across the country on Sunday night, blocking the entrance to Jerusalem and major highways, carrying mock coffins draped in Israeli flags and shouting “murderer” in a reference to prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
The Histadrut trade union federation is holding a general strike, initially for one day on Monday, to press the government to end the war and bring back the remaining hostages.
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“It’s impossible to stand by any more and do nothing as our children are murdered in the tunnels of Gaza,” said Histadrut chair Arnon Bar-David. “A deal is more important than anything else.”
Many restaurants and cinemas shut on Sunday night, urging customers to join the protests.
Israel said findings from autopsies of the six hostages, who had survived more than 300 days in captivity, indicates they had been shot a number of times at close range on Thursday or Friday.
Five of the six were seized from the Nova music festival during the October 7th Hamas attack: Carmel Gat was taken from kibbutz Be’eri.
Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin was well known abroad due to the efforts by his parents Rachel and Jon to raise awareness of his plight, including an emotional speech at the recent Democratic National Convention in Chicago. , Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi and Carmel Gat were to have been released in the initial stage of the hostage deal.
US president Joe Biden said that he was “devastated and outraged” and that “Hamas will pay for these crimes”. Four of the eight American hostages have now been killed.
In a video message, Mr Netanyahu, who has argued that military pressure is the best way to free the hostages, blamed Hamas for the failure to achieve a ceasefire. “Whoever murders hostages does not want a deal,” he said. “I say to the Hamas terrorists ... your lives are now forfeit.”
On Thursday the Israeli cabinet voted that Israeli forces will remain along the Philidelphi corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border, in a move seen as a major obstacle to efforts to end the war. Defence minister Yoav Gallant, who supports a ceasefire, called on Sunday for the government to reverse the decision.
Hamas claimed the hostages had been “killed by Zionist bombing” and blamed the deaths on Israel and the US.
Ireland joined international condemnation of the killings, President Michael D Higgins saying: “As the international community looks on, they must insist that it is time for all remaining hostages to be released by Hamas, for an immediate ceasefire, for a serious exchange of prisoners to take place, and for all necessary aid to be provided to those who need it.”
Taoiseach Simon Harris described the murder of the hostages in Gaza as “an outrage” reiterating his call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire. Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said he was “deeply saddened by the tragic news”.
In Gaza city Israeli forces on Sunday attacked a school they claimed was being used by Hamas as a command and control centre.
The first day of a polio vaccination campaign across Gaza took place on Sunday. Israel and Hamas agreed to a three-day “humanitarian pause” in the fighting to facilitate the vaccination roll-out, planned for the coastal enclave’s 640,000 children after the first polio case in 25 years was reported in Gaza last month.
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