TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Tens of hundreds of grieving and offended Israelis poured into the streets Sunday night after six more hostages were found dead in Gaza, chanting “Now! Now!” and demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas to bring the remaining prisoners home.
The mass demonstration was apparently the biggest of its kind in 11 months of war. Protesters said it felt like a possible turning point, despite the fact that the country is deeply divided.
Israel's largest union, the Histadrut, put further pressure on the federal government by calling a general strike for Monday, the primary because the October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war. The strike goals to shut or disrupt key sectors of the economy, including banking, health care and the country's primary airport.
Negotiations for a ceasefire have dragged on for months, with many blaming Netanyahu for the failure to succeed in an agreement, despite opinion polls showing a majority of Israelis in favor. But the prime minister also has significant support for his strategy of “total victory” against Hamas, even when an agreement on the hostages must wait.
Thousands of individuals gathered outside Netanyahu's office in Jerusalem on Sunday evening, a few of them crying. In Tel Aviv, relatives of the hostages marched with coffins to symbolize the victims.
“We really believe that the government is making these decisions to protect itself and not to protect the lives of the hostages, and we have to tell them, 'Stop!'” said Shlomit Hacohen, a Tel Aviv resident.
Three of the six hostages found dead – including an Israeli-American citizen – were reportedly set to be released as a part of the primary phase of a ceasefire proposal discussed in July, adding to anger and frustration amongst protesters.
“Nothing is worse than knowing they could have been saved,” said Dana Loutaly. “Sometimes it takes something so terrible to wake people up and get them out on the streets.”
The military said all six hostages were killed shortly before Israeli forces arrived. “Those who murder hostages do not want a deal,” Netanyahu said, blaming the militant Hamas for the deadlock in negotiations.
One of the hostages was 23-year-old Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin from Berkeley, California, who lost a part of his left arm to a grenade within the attack. In April, a video released by Hamas showed him alive, sparking latest protests in Israel.
The army identified the others as Ori Danino, 25; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Almog Sarusi, 27; Alexander Lobanov, 33; and Carmel Gat, 40.
Israel's Health Ministry said autopsies showed the hostages were shot at close range and died on Thursday or Friday. The army said the bodies were recovered from a tunnel within the southern Gaza town of Rafah, about 800 meters from where one other hostage was rescued alive last week.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesman, said Israeli forces found the bodies several dozen meters underground while “continuous fighting” was underway, but there was no shooting within the tunnel itself. He said there was little question Hamas had killed them.
Hamas has offered the discharge of the hostages in exchange for an end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the discharge of numerous Palestinian prisoners, including high-ranking militants.
Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said the hostages would still be alive if Israel had accepted a US-backed ceasefire proposal that Hamas said it agreed to in July.
The funerals began with even greater outrage. Sarusi's body was draped in an Israeli flag. “You were abandoned again and again, day after day, hour after hour, 331 days,” said his mother Nira. “You and so many beautiful and pure souls.”
Divisions in Israel and the federal government
Netanyahu has vowed to proceed the fighting until Hamas is destroyed.
Senior security officials say the large pressure on Hamas has created favorable conditions for a ceasefire. The army, which knows the difficulties of rescue operations, has acknowledged that a deal is the one method to bring large numbers of hostages home safely.
But critics accused the prime minister of putting his personal interests above those of the hostages. The end of the war will likely result in an investigation into his government's failings within the October 7 attacks, the collapse of the federal government and the early elections.
Some analysts said the general public outcry over the deaths of the six hostages may very well be an indication of a brand new level of political pressure on Netanyahu.
“I think this is an earthquake. This is not just another step in the war,” said Nomi Bar-Yaacov, associate fellow within the International Security Program at Chatham House, shortly before the protests on Sunday.
Disagreements have also emerged inside the federal government, with senior military and security officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, warning that point is running out.
Israeli television station Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu and Gallant clashed at a security cabinet meeting on Thursday, with Gallant accusing him of putting control of a strategic corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border – a significant sticking point within the talks – above the lives of the hostages.
An Israeli official confirmed the report and said three of the hostages – Goldberg-Polin, Yerushalmi and Gat – were to have been released in the primary phase of a ceasefire proposal discussed in July. The official was not authorized to transient the media on the negotiations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“On behalf of the State of Israel, I carry their families in my heart and ask for forgiveness,” Gallant said on Sunday. The cabinet met on Sunday evening.
A forum of hostage families called for a “complete shutdown of the country” to force a ceasefire and the discharge of the hostages.
Even a mass outburst of anger wouldn’t pose a right away threat to Netanyahu or his far-right government. He still has a majority in parliament, but he has caved to public pressure before. A general strike last yr helped delay his controversial judicial reforms.
The spectacular campaign of a family
Goldberg-Polin's parents, U.S.-born immigrants to Israel, became perhaps the hostages' most high-profile relatives on the international stage, meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and Pope Francis and speaking on the Democratic National Convention on August 21 to sustained applause and shouts of “Bring him home.”
Biden said on Sunday that he was “devastated and outraged.” The White House said he had spoken to Goldberg-Polin's parents and expressed their condolences.
On October 7, around 250 hostages were taken. Israel believes that 101 hostages remain in captivity, of whom 35 are presumed dead. More than 100 were released during a ceasefire in November in exchange for the discharge of Palestinians held captive in Israel. Eight were rescued by Israeli forces. Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Israelis who escaped from captivity in December.
When militants led by Hamas invaded southern Israel on October 7, they killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. According to local health authorities, greater than 40,000 Palestinians were killed within the Israeli retaliatory offensive within the Gaza Strip. They didn’t provide any information on the variety of fighters.
On Sunday, an Israeli strike hit a automobile on a road within the southern Gaza Strip, killing 4 Palestinians, based on officials at Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and an AP journalist who counted the bodies.
The war has forced the overwhelming majority of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants to flee, often multiple times, and plunged the besieged territory right into a humanitarian catastrophe.
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Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo, Danica Kirka in London and Darlene Superville in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, contributed to this report.
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