Israel: Broad alliance calls for general strike

Israel’s largest trade union, the Histadrut, called for a general strike on Monday in support of the hostages still alive in the Gaza Strip. Relatives of the abducted people and opposition leader Jair Lapid called for protests. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) expressed shock at the discovery of the dead hostages.

“I have come to the conclusion that only our intervention can wake up those who need to be woken up,” said Histadrut leader Arnon Bar David, referring to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The government is accused of preventing an agreement with the Islamist Hamas on the release of the hostages by constantly making new demands. Starting at 6 a.m. on Monday morning, “the entire Israeli economy will go on a full strike,” wrote the union leader.

Defense Minister Joav Gallant stands on the side of the victims’ families

The forum of hostages’ relatives had previously called for a general strike and appealed to the unions to join in. This was intended to force the government to immediately conclude an agreement to release the hostages who were still alive, said the forum of hostages’ families and missing persons. Opposition leader Jair Lapid supported the demands.

Defense Minister Joav Gallant also had clear words: He demanded that the cabinet “retract” a decision made on Thursday regarding the continued Israeli military presence in the Philadelphia Corridor. The area along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt is one of the central points of contention in the ceasefire negotiations.

Almost eleven months after the radical Islamist Hamas attack on Israel, the Israeli army found the bodies of six hostages in a tunnel near Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip on Saturday. Five of them had been kidnapped during the major Hamas attack on the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7, and one of the young women who was found dead had been abducted from Kibbutz Beeri.

Hostages were shot

Among the dead was Israeli-American dual citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin. The 23-year-old’s parents recently recalled their son’s fate at the US Democratic Party convention.

The Israeli Health Ministry announced the first results of a forensic medical examination of the hostages’ bodies on Sunday evening. The six men and women were “murdered by Hamas terrorists with several shots fired at close range approximately 48 to 72 hours” before their examination, a spokeswoman said.

Hamas sources said on Sunday that Goldberg-Polin’s name was on a “Hamas-approved list” of hostages who were to be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in the event of a ceasefire with Israel. According to Israeli media reports, a total of three of the hostages now found dead were to be released in the event of an agreement.

Olaf Scholz reacts with tweet

Critics accuse Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu of dragging out the war in the Gaza Strip for political reasons. In a conversation with the parents of the Hamas hostage Alexander Lobanov, who was found dead, on Sunday, Netanyahu asked for “forgiveness (…) that I was unable to bring Sasha back alive.”

Chancellor Scholz wrote on the online service X: “The news of six hostages recovered dead in the Gaza Strip fills us with sadness and anger.” Scholz went on to say that “Hamas terrorists” bear “responsibility for the deaths of these women and men, one of whom has a connection to Germany.” The hostage killed, Carmel Gat, is the sister-in-law of the German-Israeli Yarden Roman-Gat, who was released from Hamas hostage custody in November.

According to Israeli sources, Hamas fighters killed 1,205 people and took 251 hostages to the Gaza Strip in a major attack on numerous locations in southern Israel on October 7. Almost eleven months later, according to the latest Israeli information, 97 hostages are still being held by Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups, 33 of whom are dead. In response to the Hamas attack, Israel is taking massive military action in the Gaza Strip.

According to Hamas figures, which cannot be independently verified, more than 40,700 people have been killed since October. For months, mediators the United States, Qatar and Egypt have been trying in vain to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas on a ceasefire and the release of the hostages.