Israeli Court Orders End to General Strike Protesting Netanyahu’s Cabinet

Update:

The chairman of Histadrut, Israel’s largest trade union, instructed workers to return to their jobs following an order by an Israeli court to end the general strike on Monday afternoon.

Earlier:

Workers across Israel walked off the job and took to the streets on Monday to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to agree to a cease-fire and hostage-release deal after Israeli forces recovered the bodies of six people who were held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Yair Lapid, Israel’s opposition leader, expressed support for the strike, saying that “Netanyahu and the cabinet of death decided not to save” the six hostages whose bodies were recovered from Rafah. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Sunday that Hamas fighters killed the hostages, including Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

Hamas said in a statement that “we hold the criminal terrorist Benjamin Netanyahu and the biased American administration responsible for the failure of the negotiations to stop the aggression against our people and to release the prisoners in an exchange.”

B’Tselem, an Israeli advocacy organization, said in a statement Sunday that “the six Israeli hostages whose bodies were recovered from Gaza this morning could have been saved if the Israeli government had heeded the pleas of their families and the Israeli public to reach a cease-fire and an exchange deal.”

Labor unions in the United States — Israel’s main ally and weapons supplier — expressed solidarity with Israeli workers who walked off the job Monday, with American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten applauding “this action to halt Israel’s economy to send a message to the Netanyahu government to end this war.”