Israel and Hamas at War, Day 331 | “General Strike” Declared Monday in Support of Hostages

Israel’s powerful trade union, the Histadrut, has declared a “general strike” for Monday in order to force the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to reach an agreement for the release of the hundred hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.

“We must stop this abandonment of hostages […] “Tomorrow at 6 a.m. (11 p.m. Eastern time), the entire Israeli economy will be on general strike,” Histadrut leader Arnon Bar-David said at a press conference on Sunday.

“At 8 a.m. the airport will be closed, takeoffs and landings will cease,” added a statement from the Histadrut.

The Israeli army’s announcement on Sunday of the discovery of the bodies of six new hostages who died in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip has caused shock and anger in Israel. None of these hostages had previously been declared dead.

The unprecedented attack carried out by Hamas in Israel on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.

In the attack, which sparked war in the Gaza Strip, 251 people were abducted in Israel and taken to the Palestinian territory. 97 are still being held in Gaza, including 33 who have been declared dead by the army.

The Hostage Families Forum called on Israelis to demonstrate in Tel Aviv on Sunday evening to demand “a total blockade of the country and an agreement for the release of the hostages.”

In the occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army is continuing a large-scale operation against armed groups for the fifth day, three Israeli police officers were killed in an “armed attack”, according to the police.

A vast anti-polio campaign has also been officially launched in the Gaza Strip, where a war has been going on for almost 11 months between Israel and Hamas. The UN has announced “humanitarian pauses” on this subject, but its contours remain uncertain.

“The Army and the Shin Bet [sécurité intérieure] have located [samedi] and recovered the bodies of hostages Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino from a tunnel in the Rafah area (south), the Israeli army announced on Sunday.

Mr Biden had earlier announced the discovery of the six bodies, including that of Israeli-American Goldberg-Polin, saying he was “devastated”. The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, also said he was “horrified” and the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, “shocked”.

” Pardon ”

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the hostages were “killed in cold blood by Hamas just before we got to them.”

“I would like to express my regret and ask your forgiveness for not having managed to bring Sasha back alive,” Netanyahu told Alexander Lobanov’s parents by telephone.

He also said that “he who kills hostages does not want an agreement” on a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. “We will pursue you, we will catch you and we will settle your score,” he said to Hamas.

A senior member of the Islamist movement, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the hostages had been “killed by gunfire and bombardments from the Israeli occupier” and that some “of them” were on the list of hostages to be released that Hamas “had approved.”

At least four hostages are to be buried in the afternoon in several cities across Israel.

Israelis killed in West Bank

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, a movement it labels a terrorist group, as do the United States and the European Union.

The Israeli reprisals have killed at least 40,738 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas Health Ministry, causing a humanitarian and health disaster and displacing almost all of the 2.4 million residents. The majority of the dead are women and minors, according to the UN.

At the same time, Israel is continuing a vast operation described as “anti-terrorist” which began on Wednesday in the north of the occupied West Bank, which has sparked protests from the international community.

In the south of the territory, three Israeli police officers, including a woman, were killed on Sunday near a checkpoint in an “armed attack”, according to the commander of the Israeli police.

This attack was not claimed, but Hamas saw it as “a natural response to the massacres of the Palestinian people”.

Israeli excavators were destroying streets in Jenin on Sunday, one of the cities targeted by the Israeli operation in the northern West Bank, an AFP photographer observed.

At least 22 Palestinians, mostly fighters, have been killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank since Wednesday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. All of them “terrorists,” the Israeli army said.

Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, and Islamic Jihad, another armed group, said at least 14 of the dead were fighting in their ranks.

“Peace, the best vaccine”

In the Gaza Strip, a polio vaccination campaign began Sunday morning, with the aim of vaccinating more than 640,000 children under the age of ten. It is currently being carried out in the center of the territory and will include two more phases for other areas.

Louise Wateridge, spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), spoke in the afternoon of a “success” with “thousands of children vaccinated”.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Israel had agreed to “humanitarian pauses” in the campaign.

Denying “reports of a general ceasefire” to allow the campaign, Mr Netanyahu’s office said Israel would allow “only a humanitarian corridor”.

WHO Director-General Dr.^r Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, for his part, said that for the children of Gaza, “the best vaccine […] is peace.”

Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, the Civil Defense reported two dead and six injured in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City.

Pope Francis called on Sunday for an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages and aid for the people of Gaza “where so many diseases are spreading.”