September 02, 2024 | 00.02
READING TIME: 2 minutes
Israel is on fire, tensions rise with demonstrations for the release of hostages held in Gaza since October 7 and culminates today with a general strike. According to the Hostages’ Families Forum, around 700,000 people took to the streets across the country: over half a million in Tel Aviv alone. Faced with the massive protest, according to CNN, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “worried.”
On the crucial day, the Aylon highway in Tel Aviv was invaded in particular, shouting ‘Bibi (Netanyahu, ed.) kills the hostages’. According to the Times of Israel, clashes between demonstrators and police, with about twenty arrests. Demonstrations also took place in Jerusalem, Haifa, Ra’anana, Be’er Sheva, Kfar Saba, Kiryat Bialik, Afula, Ness Ziona, Binyamina.
The discovery of the bodies of six young people killed in a tunnel in Rafah further raises tensions in a context characterised today by the general strike proclaimed by the head of the Histadrut, the main trade union organisation of the Jewish state, Arnon Bar-David.
The strike
The strike had long been a demand of the Forum to protest against the government led by Prime Minister Netanyahu. “An agreement is more important than anything else,” Bar-David said, arguing that the agreement on the hostages – as matured from talks with many members of the security apparatus – is blocked “due to political considerations.”
“We are getting body bags instead of an agreement. I have come to the conclusion that only our intervention” could give a boost to the negotiations, he added, announcing that “starting at 6 a.m. tomorrow the entire labor market will go on strike.”
The protest will also affect Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport, which will stop operations from 8:00 a.m. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has officially requested the intervention of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to issue a general requisition with immediate injunctions.
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