Strike against Netanyahu ends prematurely and without paralyzing Israel

Banks, ports, factories and universities in Israel have halted their activities on Monday as part of the first strike against the government of Benjamin Netanyahu in almost 11 months of war. It had an uneven response and lasted just eight hours, during which there were small protests and roadblocks. At midday, a court ordered it to end, considering it “political” and “unrelated” to the issue for which the major trade union centre, the Histadrut, had called it the day before, in the face of outrage – unprecedented in months – over the discovery in a tunnel in Gaza of another six bodies of hostages, who would have returned alive if Netanyahu had not put obstacles in the way of a ceasefire agreement since December.

The strike began at 6:00 a.m. (5:00 a.m. local time) and was expected to last 24 hours. Histadrut President Arnon Bar-David first announced to the labor court that he was considering a petition to suspend the strike, which would end at 6:00 p.m. At noon, the court ordered it to end at 2:30 p.m. Bar-David responded by urging the workers to return to their jobs.

During its short life, the strike has not managed to paralyse Israel. Its participation has depended greatly on the locality, the sector and the strength of each union branch in the fight with the authorities governed by the Likud, Netanyahu’s party. For example, most banks and universities joined in, as did, in general, important private sector companies. The electricity company and the postal service also did, but the participation in the ports was uneven.

The municipal bus companies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem only stopped for the first six hours of the day. The same happened with the primary schools (secondary schools were already on strike over a wage dispute), which reopened at 12 noon. The light rail system, however, continued to operate in the third city, Haifa.

An important thermometer was Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, which handles the vast majority of arrivals and departures by air. After hours of pressure on Sunday, the strike was limited to two hours (from 8:00 to 10:00) and only for takeoffs, without preventing landings. The Histadrut and the Ministry of Transport – headed by one of the most right-wing ministers of the Likud, Miri Regev – kept up a fight after that hour, because the delays and long queues continued, with strategies such as stopping check-in and baggage collection at the counters. Only seven flights to the United States departed until the court order.

This morning, during the strike, the head of the Histadrut’s public relations department, Yaniv Levy, estimated that 95% of local authorities were on strike and opened the door to new strikes involving more sectors. The day before, the Minister of Finance, the far-right Bezalel Smotrich, who opposes a ceasefire agreement because he considers it a “surrender” to Hamas, said that Monday’s strike “fulfills the dreams” of Hamas leader Yahia Sinwar. He also ordered the Treasury Department to ensure that those who do not show up for work are deducted from their salaries on the day.

Despite its mixed success, it is the first strike against the Netanyahu government since March 2023 (then, on the occasion of its controversial and divisive judicial reform), after two weeks of accumulated grievances and twelve hostages returning in coffins. According to the autopsy, reported by local media, the last six were killed with shots at point-blank range, some 48 and 72 hours before their discovery, this Sunday, in a tunnel in Gaza. That is, their captors apparently executed them and fled, believing that the soldiers had discovered the hiding place and were preparing to try to rescue them. Only the Bedouin Qaid Farhan Alkadi was found alive by the troops this month in a tunnel. He was the only Muslim.

The twelve Jewish Israelis found dead in Gaza in just a few days have further undermined Netanyahu’s mantra that “military pressure brings a deal closer, rather than further away” and brought some 500,000 people, around 5% of the country’s population, onto the streets of 40 towns on Sunday. The majority demonstrated in Tel Aviv, where urban youth, residents of nearby kibbutzim and elderly veterans of the 1973 Yom Kippur War gathered to chant “All of us!” [los rehenes] “Now!”, “Deal now!”, “Why are they still in Gaza!?” or “You are the leader, you are guilty!”, referring to Netanyahu.

The Histadrut chairman, aware – as he admitted on the stand – that he was only now responding to months of pressure to paralyze the country, insisted that the most important thing now was to achieve a ceasefire that would bring back the 101 hostages still in Gaza, of whom the army has confirmed about thirty dead. “Jews do not abandon Jews, what is not clear about this? It makes no sense that our children should die in tunnels for political reasons!” […] The country is on the road to political ruin.” The Histadrut, reluctant to call for a strike, had been negotiating with the Ministry of Finance an increase in wages in the collective agreements.

Eighteen people have been arrested for the protests in Tel Aviv. Not at the general demonstration, but around midnight, when several thousand people managed to break through the police cordon and block the Ayalon ring road. The atmosphere was different. The police, some of them on horseback, used water cannons and stun grenades to disperse them. As they advanced, they pushed people out.

They were mostly young people, who lit bonfires and set up barricades in the middle of the road, chanting more political slogans than in the previous protest, such as “Bibi (Netanyahu’s nickname) kill the hostages”, “Police, who are you protecting?” or “[Itamar] Ben Gvir is a terrorist,” referring to the extremist minister in charge of the police. Scuffles with protesters who refused to move or confronted the police were constant during the three hours that the blockade of Ayalon lasted.

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