Protests in Israel are on the rise, a major strike is planned…

JERUSALEM (AP) — Grieving and angry Israelis took to the streets Sunday night after six more hostages were found dead in Gaza, demanding, chanting “Now! Now!”, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a cease-fire with Hamas to bring the remaining captives home.

Israel’s largest labor union, the Histadrut, has called for a general strike on Monday to put pressure on the government, the first since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war. The strike is expected to paralyze or disrupt major sectors of the economy, including banking, health care and the country’s main airport.

Tens of thousands of Israelis were expected to protest Sunday night. Many blame Netanyahu for failing to return the hostages alive after reaching a deal with Hamas to end nearly 11 months of war. Negotiations have dragged on for months. The Israeli military has acknowledged the difficulty of rescuing the hostages and has said a deal is the only way to achieve a large-scale return.

“I am crying the cry of humanity,” said a protester who identified himself as Amos as thousands of people, some of them crying, gathered outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem.

The military said the six hostages had been killed shortly before Israeli forces arrived. Netanyahu said Israel would hold Hamas accountable for killing the hostages “in cold blood” and blamed the militant group for the deadlock in negotiations, saying “whoever kills hostages does not want a deal.”

Militants captured Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, and four other hostages at a music festival in southern Israel during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that sparked the war.

The man, from Berkeley, California, lost part of his left arm to a grenade in the attack. In April, a video released by Hamas showed him alive but without his left hand, sparking fresh protests in Israel.

The army identified the other dead hostages as Ori Danino, 25; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Almog Sarusi, 27; and Alexander Lobanov, 33; who were also kidnapped at the music festival. The sixth, Carmel Gat, 40, was kidnapped in the nearby farming community of Be’eri.

He said the bodies were recovered from a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, about a kilometre from where another hostage, Qaid Farhan Alkadi, 52, was rescued alive last week.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said the army believed there were hostages in the area but had no specific information. He said Israeli forces found the bodies several dozen meters underground while “ongoing fighting” was taking place, but that there was no gunfire in the tunnel.

He said there was no doubt that Hamas had killed them.

Hamas has offered to release the hostages in exchange for an end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants.

Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said the hostages would still be alive if Israel had accepted the US-backed ceasefire proposal that Hamas said it agreed to in July.

Relatives of hostages call for a “total shutdown of the country”

Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and says military pressure is needed to bring the hostages home.

Critics have accused Netanyahu of dragging out ceasefire negotiations and putting his personal interests ahead of those of the hostages. The end of the war will likely lead to an inquiry into his government’s failures in the Oct. 7 attacks, the collapse of his government and early elections.

“I think this is an earthquake. It’s not just another step in the war,” said Nomi Bar-Yaacov, a research associate at the Chatham House International Security Programme, shortly before Sunday’s protests began.

Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu got into a shouting match at a security Cabinet meeting on Thursday with his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who accused him of prioritizing control of a strategic corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border — a major sticking point in the talks — over the lives of the hostages. The Cabinet reportedly voted to remain in the corridor despite objections from Gallant, who said that would prevent a deal on the hostages.

An Israeli official confirmed the report, saying three of the hostages — Goldberg-Polin, Yerushalmi and Gat — were to be released in the first phase of a ceasefire proposal discussed in July. The official was not authorized to brief the media on the negotiations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“On behalf of the State of Israel, I hold their families close to my heart and ask for forgiveness,” Gallant said Sunday after the bodies were recovered. He later called on the Cabinet to reverse its decision.

A forum of hostage families has demanded a “complete shutdown of the country” to push for a ceasefire and the release of the hostages. “A deal for the return of the hostages has been on the table for more than two months. If it were not for the delays, sabotage and excuses, those whose deaths we learned of this morning would probably still be alive,” it said in a statement.

Even a mass outpouring of anger would not immediately threaten Netanyahu or his hardline government. Netanyahu still controls a majority in parliament, but he has bowed to public pressure in the past. Mass protests led him to cancel the dismissal of his defense minister last year, and a general strike last year helped delay his controversial judicial reform.

A high-profile campaign

Goldberg-Polin’s parents, American-born immigrants who came to Israel, became the most prominent hostage relatives on the international stage. They met with Biden, Pope Francis and others, and spoke at the United Nations, calling for the release of all hostages.

On August 21, his parents addressed a hushed room at the Democratic National Convention, to prolonged applause and chants of “bring him home.”

“This is a political convention, but the need for our only son — and all the beloved hostages — to come home is not a political issue, it’s a humanitarian issue,” said his father, Jon Polin. His mother, Rachel, who bowed her head during the applause and touched her chest, said: “Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you. Stay strong. Survive.”

US President Joe Biden, who met with Goldberg-Polin’s parents, said he was “devastated and outraged”. He added: “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will continue to work tirelessly to reach an agreement that secures the release of the remaining hostages.”

Goldberg-Polin’s parents sought to prevent their son and the others being detained from being demoted to No. 1, describing Hersh as a music and football lover and a traveler with plans to attend college after his military service ended.

Some 250 hostages were taken on October 7. Israel now believes 101 remain in captivity, including 35 believed to be dead. More than 100 were released during a week-long ceasefire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians jailed by Israel. Eight have been rescued by Israeli forces.

Two previous Israeli operations to free hostages have killed dozens of Palestinians. Hamas says several hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and failed rescue attempts. Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Israelis who escaped captivity in December.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, when they stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, attacking military bases and several farming communities.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who did not say how many were combatants. It has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, often multiple times, and plunged the besieged territory into a humanitarian catastrophe.

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Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war