General strike held as street protesters call on prime minister to seek compromise
A protester wearing a mask depicting Israel 's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu attends a rally in Tel Aviv calling for the release of Israel is held hostage by Palestinian militants in Gaza since October.
Several right-wing cities and settlements said they would not join the strike. The tension between the two camps has grown with the realisation that time is quickly running out for the remaining 101 hostages in Hamas custody. At least 35 of them are already presumed dead by Israeli officials. Smotrich and other far-right ministers have threatened repeatedly to collapse Netanyahu’s coalition if he were to accept a deal tied to a comprehensive ceasefire, demanding greater military pressure on Hamas to free the hostages. But so far, Israel’s military has managed to rescue just eight of the roughly 240 people taken hostage on October 7th and has killed three by mistake.
“The delay in signing the deal has led to deaths and those of many other hostages,” said the Hostage and Missing Families forum, an advocacy group. “We call to Netanyahu: Stop hiding. Provide the public with a justification for this ongoing abandonment.” But Netanyahu — Israel’s longest-serving premier — has weathered larger, more sustained protests before.
But leaks to Israel’s Channel 12 news over the weekend painted a different picture, enraging many of the families of the hostages, who have long warned that Netanyahu was delaying a deal to keep his coalition together.
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