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Protests grip Israel after six hostages killed in Gaza

Jerusalem
Reuters

Protests gripped Israel on Sunday following the death of six hostages in Gaza as frustration mounted with the country’s leadership for failing to secure a ceasefire deal that would free Israeli captives.

Crowds estimated by Israeli media to number up to 500,000 strong demonstrated in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other cities, demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu do more to bring home the remaining 101 hostages. Israel estimates about a third of them are dead. Labour leaders urged workers to stage a one-day general strike on Monday.


Protesters rally outside the Defence Ministry against the government and to show support for the hostages who were kidnapped during the deadly 7th October attack, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel on 1st September, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Florion Goga.

The Israeli military announced the recovery of the bodies from a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, as a polio vaccination campaign began in the war-shattered Palestinian territory and violence flared in the occupied West Bank.

The bodies of hostages Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino have been returned to Israel, military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters.

A forensic examination determined they were “murdered by Hamas terrorists in a number of shots at close range” 48 to 72 hours previously, an Israeli health ministry spokesperson said.

In Jerusalem, protesters blocked streets and demonstrated outside the prime minister’s residence. Aerial footage showed Tel Aviv’s main highway blocked with protesters holding flags with pictures of the slain hostages. Some two dozen Israelis were arrested nationwide, police said.

Netanyahu, who faces growing calls to end nearly 11 months of war with a deal for a ceasefire and the release of remaining hostages, said Israel would not rest until it caught those responsible. “Whoever murders hostages – does not want a deal,” he said.



Senior Hamas officials said that Israel, in its refusal to sign a ceasefire agreement, was to blame for the deaths.

“Netanyahu is responsible for the killing of Israeli prisoners,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters. “The Israelis should choose between Netanyahu and the deal.”

Israel’s assault on Gaza began after Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages in attacks on Israel on 7th Octobr, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, Israel’s offensive has levelled much of the enclave of 2.3 million people, and the Gaza health ministry says at least 40,738 Palestinians have been killed. Displaced people are living in dire conditions with inadequate shelter and a hunger crisis.

“Hamas will pay”, Biden says
Amid mounting public anger, the head of Israel’s trades union federation, Arnon Bar-David, on Sunday called for a general strike on Monday to pressure the government into signing a deal, and said Ben Gurion airport, Israel’s main air transport hub, would be closed from 8am.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who has clashed frequently with Netanyahu, also called for an agreement, and opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid urged people to join the demonstration in Tel Aviv.


Israel security forces move a person attending a demonstration calling for the immediate return of hostages held in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, outside Prime Minister office in Jerusalem on 1st September, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun.

In a last-ditch bid to stop the demonstrations, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hardline member of Israel’s security cabinet, asked the attorney general to prohibit the strike.

The Hostage Families Forum called on Netanyahu to take responsibility and explain what was holding up an agreement.

The six hostages brought home on Sunday “were all murdered in the last few days, after surviving almost 11 months of abuse, torture, and starvation in Hamas captivity. The delay in signing the deal has led to their deaths and those of many other hostages,” it said.

Netanyahu’s office said he had spoken to the family of Lobanov, whose body was among those recovered, apologising and expressing “deep sorrow”.

But the family of Gat said they refused to speak to the Prime Minister and instead called on Israelis to join protests.

“Take to the streets and shut down the country until everyone returns. They can still be saved,” Gat’s cousin, Gil Dickmann, wrote on X.


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US President Joe Biden said he was “devastated and outraged” by the death of 23-year-old Israeli American Goldberg-Polin and the other hostages.

“Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages,” he said in a statement.

Speaking to reporters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, he said he was “still optimistic” about a ceasefire deal.

Months of stop-start negotiations mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt have so far failed to secure a deal, despite increased US pressure and repeated trips by top officials to the region.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera television, chief Hamas negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya, based in Qatar, on Sunday reaffirmed the group would not sign an agreement unless Israel fully withdrew from Gaza Strip, including the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors, issues that have been sticking points in the talks.


A Palestinian girl is vaccinated against polio, at a United Nations healthcare centre in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, on 1st September, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Ramadan Abed.

Polio vaccinations
Israel and Hamas agreed to pause fighting in areas of Gaza for at least eight hours daily from Sunday to Tuesday to begin vaccinating 640,000 children against polio.

Children, escorted by family members, crowded a UN clinic in the central Gaza city of Deir Al-Balah, according to Palestinian officials. The territory’s health ministry said at least 72,611 children were vaccinated the first day.

The campaign comes after the confirmation last month that a baby was partially paralysed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.

Israeli forces continued to battle Hamas-led militants in several parts of Gaza, with the Israeli military targeting what it said was a Hamas command centre in a former school in Gaza City. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said 11 people had died and medics said many others had been wounded.

In Khan Younis, an Israeli air strike killed two Palestinians and wounded 10 others, according to medics, bringing the day’s total death toll in Gaza to 27.

Meanwhile, three Israeli police officers were killed on Sunday when their vehicle came under fire near the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, Israeli officials said, adding to days of violence in the Palestinian territory.

Following the attack in the area of the Idna Tarqumiyah Junction, security forces surrounded a house in Hebron and killed a Palestinian suspected of carrying out the shooting, the military said.

Hundreds of Israeli troops have been carrying out raids across the West Bank since last Wednesday in one of their largest actions in the area in months, which Israel says is aimed at rooting out Iranian-backed Islamist militants.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported on Sunday that two Palestinian brothers had been shot by Israeli forces in the town of Kafr Dan, outside Jenin in the northern West Bank, where Israeli forces have been operating since Wednesday.

The operation, now in its fifth day, has caused heavy damage to infrastructure in the city and the adjacent refugee camp, a densely populated township, with multiple damaged houses and buildings and a mass of streets torn up by armoured bulldozers hunting for roadside bombs.

At least 24 Palestinians, most claimed by Hamas or Islamic Jihad as their members, have been killed since the start of the Israeli operation.

Israeli forces have made 110 arrests, according to the Palestinian prisoners association.

– With reporting by ARI RABINOVITCH, STEVEN SCHEER and JAMES MACKENZIE in Jerusalem, and STEPHANIE KELLY in Rehoboth Beach

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