Protestors block roads in Israel as general strike beginsDozens of protesters have blocked Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv, demanding the government agree a deal to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas amid widespread public anger at the government’s handling of the war in Gaza.
Protesters also gathered at Shilat Junction near Modi’in and blocked a road in the northern city of Rosh Pina, the Times of Israel reported.
Histadrut – one of the country’s most powerful unions – announced the one-day strike, which started at 6am (local time) this morning. It is unclear how many people will join in.
Government and municipal offices are due to close, as well as schools and many private businesses. Israel’s international airport, Ben Gurion, is due to shut down at 8am local time (0600 BST) for an unknown period.
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Here are some of the latest images from Israel coming out from the newswires:
Families and supporters of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip since October lift placards and chant slogans calling for their release during a rally in Tel Aviv. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty ImagesIsraeli opposition leader Yair Lapid attends a rally in Tel Aviv put on by families and supporters of hostages held by Hamas. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty ImagesProtesters march in Tel Aviv in solidarity with Israeli hostages held captive in the Gaza Strip. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty ImagesCivil defence rescuers said an Israeli strike on Sunday killed 11 people at a school where Israel’s military claimed a Hamas command centre was based, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
An AFP correspondent reported some airstrikes overnight, with the civil defence agency saying artillery shelling hit Gaza City, where two people were killed when a missile hit a residential block.
Death toll in Gaza reaches 40,786, says health ministryAt least 40,786 Palestinian people have been killed and 94,224 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Monday. The toll includes 48 deaths in the previous 24 hours.
The health ministry has said thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the enclave.
Anat Elbaz, a human resource manager at the Sartorius Company in Beit Ha’emek, has organised a one-hour protest at Beit Ha’emek Junction on Route 70 in northern Israel.
Elbaz told the Times of Israel that they held the protest in solidarity with the relatives of the Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas in Gaza. There are about 100 people waving Israel flags and posters of hostages.
“All Israeli citizens are to be valued and we don’t want the government to abandon its citizens,” Elbaz said.
Another company employee, Osnat Kalati, disagrees with those who “argue for total victory” for Israel in its war in Gaza as it lessen the likelihood of a ceasefire (Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel must bring “absolute victory”, which means eliminating Hamas, a complete dismantling of all their battalions, and destroying the entire underground tunnel network).
“But if there is no ceasefire, it is obvious that no hostages will be released,” Kalati said.
This update on today’s protest was posted by Haaretz, an Israeli media outlet, about 20 minutes ago:
Hundreds of protesters calling for a hostage deal are marching along Tel Aviv’s Namir Road, heading toward the national defence headquarters.
Approximately 200 protesters are intermittently blocking traffic at a major intersection in Be’er Sheva in southern Israel, in a demonstration coordinated with the police.
In northern Israel, a protest is taking place near the town of Yokneam and in Haifa.
General strike in Israel to end at 6pm tonight, union chair confirmsArnon Bar-David, the chair of Histadrut, Israel’s largest trade union, has said that the general strike will end at 6pm local time today (4pm BST), according to reports in Israeli media. The general strike started around 8am local time. Initially, the strike action was due to run into tomorrow morning.
Hamas’ armed wing claims responsibility for West Bank attacksHamas’ armed wing al-Qassasm brigades claimed responsibility for two attacks against Israelis in the occupied West Bank on Friday, the group has said in a statement.
Three Israelis were injured in two separate attacks in the occupied West Bank that occurred in the Karmei Tzur settlement and the Gush Etzion Junction near Hebron.
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, has said his country will “respond with full force” after the discovery of the bodies of six hostages at the weekend who were taken in the 7 October attack by Hamas.
Katz wrote in a post on X:
The Hamas terror organization brutally executed six hostages to instil fear and attempt to fracture Israeli society. Israel will respond with full force to this heinous crime. Hamas is responsible and will pay the full price.
The Hamas terror organization brutally executed six hostages to instill fear and attempt to fracture Israeli society. Israel will respond with full force to this heinous crime. Hamas is responsible and will pay the full price.
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) September 2, 2024The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the cause of death had not been officially confirmed, but the Israeli press reported yesterday that the autopsy found all six hostages had been shot in the head.
An unnamed Hamas official was quoted by Agence France-Presse on Sunday as saying the hostages had been “killed by the [Israeli] occupation’s fire and bombing”, a claim denied by the IDF.
Workers at Israel’s main commercial port Haifa have also been on strike, while hospitals have only been partially operating and many banks are not working.
As well as the disruption at Ben Gurion Airport this morning, bus and light rail services in many areas across the country have been cancelled or only partially functioning.
Some services at Ben Gurion Airport, Israel’s main air transport hub, were suspended because of the strike, although incoming flights were still landing.
Departures resumed from the airport at roughly 10am local time, about two hours after they were stopped due to the general strike.
Travellers are seen at Ben Gurion International airport near Tel Aviv, in Israel. Photograph: Ohad Zwigenberg/APDozens of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite systems have arrived in Israel, government saysIsrael’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, has said dozens of Starlink satellite communications systems have arrived in Israel and will be installed in local authority offices, hospitals, and emergency centres this week.
“And this is just the beginning. We will continue to connect Israel routinely and in emergencies,” he added in a post on X this morning.
עשרות עמדות סטארלינק נחתו בישראל.
רשויות, בתי חולים ומרכזי חירום בצפון יקבלו בימים הקרובים עמדה כזו לחמ״ל המרכזי. העמדה תספק WIFI לווייני לכל המתחם ותאפשר רציפות תקשורתית במקרי עלטה ובתרחישי יחוס למיניהם.
וזוהי רק ההתחלה.
נמשיך לחבר את ישראל בשגרה ובחירום.
תודה לרח״ל,… pic.twitter.com/LU14FoOBhZ
— 🇮🇱שלמה קרעי – Shlomo Karhi (@shlomo_karhi) September 2, 2024Starlink – the satellite network of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and the world’s largest satellite operator – provides internet services via a huge network of satellites.
It is aimed at people who live in remote areas who otherwise would not be able to get fast-speed internet connections. Musk has previously said he hoped the technology would help both Israelis and Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The Israeli government said in February that it had approved the use of Starlink satellite services in a field hospital in the Gaza Strip, and in Israel for the first time.
A statement from the communications ministry issued at the time read:
The Israeli security authorities approved the provision of Starlink services at the UAE’s field hospital operating in Rafah.
Starlink low-latency, high-speed connections will enable video conferencing with other hospitals and real-time remote diagnostics.
On Sunday, Israeli media reported the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, had instructed prosecutors to seek an injunction against the general strike.
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, wrote to the attorney general seeking an injunction, arguing that it would harm the economy and had no legal basis as its main aim was to influence government policy on state security.
The Regional Labour Court will hear a request for injunctions at 10:30 local time (08:30 BST) submitted by the Gevurah Forum, which represents some bereaved families of soldiers killed during the war with Hamas and oppose the hostage deal.
According to BBC News, Gevurah Forum’s request states “this is clearly a political strike, blatantly illegal, carried out in a bullying manner”.
Here is some more on the general strike protests in Israel today. Over 1,000 people have now gathered at the Ra’anana Junction, north of Tel Aviv, according to Times of Israel reporters.
Hundreds of protesters are blocking Namir Road in Tel Aviv, while dozens of protesters have reportedly gathered at Karkur Junction in northern Israel.
Demonstrators, some of whom are waving hostage solidarity flags and chanting anti-government statements, are out in force today to heap pressure on the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to reach a ceasefire deal to bring the remaining hostages home.
In an earlier post, we reported a suspected attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeting a ship in the Red Sea earlier today. We have some more detail on this now.
Two projectiles hit the vessel, and a third explosion occurred near the ship, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre has said.
“Damage control is underway,” the UKMTO said. “There are no casualties onboard and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call.”
The timing of the attack and coordinates offered by the UKMTO corresponded to the reported path of the Panama-flagged oil tanker Blue Lagoon I, now travelling south through the Red Sea to an unlisted destination, according to the Associated Press.
The Blue Lagoon I was coming from Russia’s port of Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea and had been broadcasting that it had Russian-origin cargo on board.
The Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack. They have targeted more than 80 vessels with missiles and drones since Israel’s war in Gaza started in October, claiming they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians.
The UN agency for Palestine refugees (Unrwa) has said 87,000 children in Gaza have received the first dose of a polio vaccine.
“Efforts are ongoing to provide children with this key vaccine, but what they need most is a ceasefire now,” the agency wrote in a post on X as the vaccination campaign continues for a second day.
Unrwa, the main channel for humanitarian support for Palestinians, said the polio vaccine is “key” to children’s health, but stressed that what they need most is an immediate ceasefire.
The vaccinations are meant to be accompanied by three-day pauses in the fighting in several areas of the territory to allow the inoculation of more than 640,000 children. But despite this pledge, there were numerous reports of Israeli airstrikes killing Palestinian people in Gaza on Sunday.
The World Health Organization believes that 90% of children under 10 in Gaza must be immunised for the campaign to be effective.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a hostage family organisation, announced more than a dozen protest locations around the country, where demonstrators are expected to block traffic and demand that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, agrees a hostage release deal. The locations are mostly major roads and intersections around Tel Aviv and the north.
Of the 250 Israeli hostages seized on 7 October, eight have been rescued and more than 100 were released in an earlier temporary ceasefire deal in November. The discovery of the six bodies of the hostages at the weekend leaves 101 hostages still unaccounted for in Gaza. The IDF has confirmed 35 of them are known to have died during the more than 10 months of captivity.
Police are holding 25 protesters arrested yesterday evening in Tel Aviv, with some of them still being questioned, the Israel daily Haaretz reported.
Several demonstrators were injured by the police, including one who was allegedly beaten by officers in the chest and head and a man who was struck in the back by a stun grenade, Haaretz reported a doctors’ protest group as having said.
Protestors block roads in Israel as general strike beginsDozens of protesters have blocked Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv, demanding the government agree a deal to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas amid widespread public anger at the government’s handling of the war in Gaza.
Protesters also gathered at Shilat Junction near Modi’in and blocked a road in the northern city of Rosh Pina, the Times of Israel reported.
Histadrut – one of the country’s most powerful unions – announced the one-day strike, which started at 6am (local time) this morning. It is unclear how many people will join in.
Government and municipal offices are due to close, as well as schools and many private businesses. Israel’s international airport, Ben Gurion, is due to shut down at 8am local time (0600 BST) for an unknown period.