General strike brings Israel to a halt, pressuring Netanyahu on hostages

Flight departures were delayed for at least two hours, according to the Israel Airports Authority and some flights resuming after 10 a.m., but a union spokesperson said workers would try to extend the shutdown. Arriving flights were unaffected, although most major international carriers had already suspended service to the airport in light of the instability in the region.

The widespread shutdown reflects a surge of anger at the government after the recovery Saturday of six hostages killed by their captors in Gaza as Israeli forces closed in. Hostage family advocates blamed their deaths on Netanyahu’s emphasis on military pressure on Hamas over negotiations to bring the remaining captives home.

“We need the hostages to come home with a deal; we don’t need the army going to look for them,” said Aviva Siegel, a former Israeli hostage whose husband, Keith, a dual American and Israeli citizen, is still held in Gaza along with almost 100 captives, a third of whom are believed dead.

Israel reacted with grief and rage Sunday as the first of the six recovered bodies were buried. Demonstrators poured into streets around the country in their largest numbers since Oct. 7 — with organizer estimating almost 500,000 nationwide including 200,000 in Tel Aviv, alone. Organizers, in conjunction with business union leaders, immediately called for Monday’s one-day general strike in hopes of pushing Netanyahu toward the cease-fire deal currently being brokered in Cairo.

“A deal is more important than anything else,” Arnon Bar-David, the head of Histadrut, Israel’s largest labor federation said Sunday night. “I call on the people of Israel to take to the streets, to leave their workplaces.”

Israel and Hamas blame each other for a series of failed cease-fire talks. Netanyahu said Sunday that the killing of the six hostages proved that Hamas “does not want a deal.”

But the largest hostage umbrella group has long faulted Netanyahu for catering to his hawkish right-wing supporters instead of making a deal happen. Israelis are divided between those who want the war in Gaza to continue until Hamas is “destroyed” — a goal military leaders have said publicly is unrealistic — and those who say getting the hostages home alive should be the first priority.

The government immediately challenged Monday’s strike, with hard-liners calling on the attorney general to have the National Labor Court declare it illegal. An emergency hearing was scheduled for midday. (According to Israeli media reports, some staff members of the attorney general’s office were themselves out on strike.)

Netanyahu made no public comments on the strike early Monday. But his Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hard-liner, blasted labor leaders for playing into Hamas’s hands.

“Arnon is, in practice, making Sinwar’s dream come true,” Smotrich said in a radio interview, referring to the Hamas leader in Gaza. “Instead of representing the Israeli workers, he is representing Hamas’s interests.”

Among the bodies recovered Saturday was Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, whose parents have mounted a global campaign to raise awareness of the hostages plight and who spoke last month at the Democratic National Convention. His funeral was scheduled for Monday afternoon, hours after public transit was scheduled to resume, and was expected to draws thousands of mourners.

Monday’s action — which was backed by several business groups and major retailers — marks the first time a general strike has been deployed in the escalating public backlash against the government’s Gaza policy.

The last widespread shutdown in Israel, in the spring of 2023, became a decisive moment in mass demonstrations against Netanyahu’s plans to restructure the country’s judiciary. The one-day strike forced the prime minister to reverse his decisions to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Gallant and Netanyahu have served uncomfortably together ever since, with Gallant emerging as a leading military voice to reach a cease-fire deal. The defense minister on Sunday called for the security cabinet to reverse its recent vote to keep troops along Gaza Egyptian border — a sticking point in the negotiations. With protesters outside chanting “Bring them home!” the cabinet refused to take the matter up.

U.S. officials said Sunday the killing of the six hostages had spurred them to work with Egyptian and Qatari negotiators on a final “take it or leave it” proposal to present to Israel and Hamas in coming weeks.

Rubin reported from Tel Aviv. Ilan Ben Zion contributed from Jerusalem.