Above photo: Flash90.
A strike called by Israel’s Labor Union has shut down businesses and public services across the country.
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis flooded the streets of several cities late on 1 September to demand the return of prisoners held by Hamas. Around 500,000 are expected to join the protests on Monday.
“It seems this is the biggest set of protests that we’ve seen since the beginning of this round of horrific assaults on Gaza that began after October 7,” Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and an international adviser to Jewish Voice for Peace, said on Monday, calling the demonstrations a “big deal.”
Israeli police fired stun grenades at protesters on Sunday night. Hebrew media reports that over a dozen were detained at the Tel Aviv demonstrations.
As tens of thousands protest in Tel Aviv to demand Netanyahu allow a prisoner exchange/ceasefire, Israeli forces are responding with stun grenades.
Israel has been at war with its neighbors since its inception. Now it appears it may go to war with itself.pic.twitter.com/55eEI1T40p
— Wyatt Reed (@wyattreed13) September 1, 2024
Israel’s Histradut Labor Union called a general strike for 2 September in protest against the government’s delay in reaching a prisoner exchange deal. Dozens of protesters blocked roads in Tel Aviv and the northern city of Rosh Pina early on Monday, demanding that the government finalize a deal to release captives held by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
Hebrew news site Ynet reported on Monday that the strike had disrupted light rail services in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
The main shopping malls in Israel have all been shuttered, as have several banks, government ministries, and tech companies. Israel’s business forum will also join the strike.
The Israeli State Prosecutor has petitioned the Labor Court to rule against the strike.
The petition requested that the court rule that “the strike announced by the Histadrut chairman, regarding all employees of the state, is not a strike for a collective labor dispute, and is, therefore, a political strike.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday that workers on strike would not be paid.
The protests and general strike were sparked by the Israeli army’s discovery of six dead captives in a tunnel in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.
Israel’s opposition and the families of Israeli captives in Gaza, as well as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, have grown increasingly frustrated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s continued obstruction of ceasefire and prisoner exchange negotiations, which they believe is the only way to retrieve the other captives.
Gallant called on 1 September for an urgent reversal of the vote taken days ago by the security cabinet in favor of Netanyahu’s position to keep troops along the Gaza–Egypt border, which is one of the main obstacles to reaching an agreement.