Israel’s largest trade union calls for general strike, ceasefire after 6 hostages killed in Gaza
Israel’s largest trade union has called a general strike for Monday following the deaths of six hostages in the Gaza Strip. The walkout is expected to shut down or disrupt major sectors of the economy.
The Histadrut, which represents some 800,000 workers in such areas as health care, transportation and banking, said the strike would begin on Monday morning.
It is aimed at stepping up pressure on the Israeli government to reach a ceasefire aimed at bringing home the remaining hostages held by Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
This would be the first general strike since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 in Israel. A general strike last year during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial judicial overhaul helped lead to a temporary delay in the plan.
Israel confirmed on Sunday that it had recovered the bodies on Saturday, including that of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a young Israeli American man who became one of the most well-known captives as his parents met with world leaders and pressed for his release, including at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month.
The military said all six had been killed shortly before the arrival of Israeli forces trying to rescue them.
“It’s another disappointment in this very long year of disappointments,” Eylon Keshet, an Israeli whose relative was taken by Hamas, told CBC News.
“They should have come back alive, a deal should have been struck a long time ago,” Keshet said. “Every day that passes that our government is not doing their best to secure a deal … more will die, and maybe my [cousin] will as well.”
The recovery of the hostages’ bodies sparked more protests against Netanyahu, whom many families of hostages and much of the wider Israeli public blame for failing to bring them back alive in a deal with Hamas to end the 10-month-old war. Negotiations over such a deal have dragged on for months.
Grieving and angry Israelis surged into the streets Sunday night after hearing news of the slain hostages, chanting “Now! Now!” as they demanded Netanyahu reach a ceasefire agreement with Hamas to bring the remaining captives home.
“I’m crying the cry of humanity,” said one protester who gave his name as Amos as thousands, some of them weeping, gathered outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem.
Militants had seized 23-year-old Goldberg-Polin, a native of Berkeley, Calif., and resident of Jerusalem, and four of the other hostages at a music festival in southern Israel during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, which triggered the war. Goldberg-Polin lost part of his left arm to a grenade in the attack.
In April, he was shown on a Hamas-issued video with his left hand missing and clearly speaking under duress — sparking new protests in Israel urging the government to do more to secure his and others’ freedom.
His family issued a statement early Sunday, hours after the Israeli army said it had located bodies in Gaza.
“With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh,” it said.
“The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time.”
The parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was taken hostage on Oct. 7 at Nova music festival during the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, say they hope newly released footage of his capture brings a deal for the release of all hostages closer to fruition.
The army identified the other hostages as Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, and Alexander Lobanov, who were also taken from the music festival. The sixth, Carmel Gat, 40, was abducted from the nearby farming community of Be’eri.
The military 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.
“According to preliminary information, they were cruelly murdered by Hamas terrorists shortly before we reached them,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesperson, told reporters.
Combat reported in the area
Lt.-Col. Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesperson, said the army believed there were hostages in the area but had no specific intelligence.
He said Israeli forces found the bodies several dozen metres underground as “ongoing combat” was underway, but that there was no firefight in the tunnel itself.
He said there was no doubt that Hamas had killed them. Hamas has offered to release the hostages in return 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 a U.S.- backed ceasefire proposal that Hamas said it had agreed to back in July.
Families call for mass protest
A forum of hostage families had called for a massive protest on Sunday, demanding a “complete halt of the country” to push for the implementation of a ceasefire and hostage release.
“A deal for the return of the hostages has been on the table for over two months. Were it not for the delays, sabotage and excuses, those whose deaths we learned about this morning would likely still be alive,” it said in a statement.
Netanyahu expressed sorrow over the deaths and said Israel would hold Hamas accountable for killing them in “cold blood.”
He said the killings prove that the militant group does not want a a ceasefire agreement.
“Whoever murders hostages doesn’t want a deal,” he said.
Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and says military pressure is needed to bring home the hostages.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that he got into a shouting match at a security cabinet meeting late Thursday with his defence 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 in favour of remaining in the corridor over the objections of Gallant, who said it would prevent a hostage deal.
Eylon Keshet, whose relatives are among Israelis still being held hostage in Gaza after they were taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, says the discovery of six hostages who were killed in the enclave shows that more pressure needs to be put on Israel’s government, Hamas officials and world leaders to secure a ceasefire deal.
U.S. President Joe Biden issued a statement late Saturday night, saying he was “devastated and outraged” by the news of Goldberg-Polin’s death.
“It is as tragic as it is reprehensible,” the statement read. “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the deaths “devastating and enraging.”
“Hamas must release all hostages, lay down its arms, and have no future in the governance of Gaza,” Trudeau said on X, formerly Twitter. “Leaders must reach a deal to bring the rest of the hostages home and end the violence.”
Before the latest announcement, Israel said it believed 108 hostages were still being held in Gaza and that about one-third of them were dead.
Kaid Farhan AlQadi, a hostage taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, was reunited with his family after 326 days in captivity. While celebrating his rescue, he urged Israel’s prime minister to increase efforts to save the remaining hostages in Gaza.
Hamas-led gunmen killed some 1,200 Israelis and foreigners and abducted about 250 hostages on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel’s military has levelled Gaza, driving nearly all of its inhabitants from their homes and killing at least 40,000, according to Palestinian health authorities. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 militants.
Parents brought plea to international stage
Goldberg-Polin’s parents became perhaps the most high-profile relatives of hostages on the international stage.
They met with Biden, Pope Francis and others, and addressed the United Nations.
On Aug. 21, they addressed a hushed hall at the Democratic National Convention, where the crowd chanted: “Bring them home.”
Goldberg-Polin’s parents were among a number of hostages’ families who protested in Kibbutz Nirim, near the border with Gaza, on Thursday to demand to secure their release.
“Hersh, it’s dada,” yelled Jon Polin.
“What you need to know, and all 107 of you need to know, is not only are the families here today and nine million people of this country, but people all over the world are fighting for you,” he said.
His mother, Rachel Goldberg, raised her hand to the sky as she spoke into the microphone: “We love you. Stay strong. Survive.”
Published at Fri, 26 Jan 2024 09:01:20 +0000
Children in Gaza receive polio vaccines as WHO launches emergency campaign
Dressed in her polio campaign vest, Dr. Tasneem Abu Al-Qambaz walks the streets of Deir al-Balah, stopping parents and administering an oral vaccine to their children, before marking each child with a black dot on their fingernail.
Polio immunization rollout began in central Gaza on Sunday after Israel and Hamas agreed to brief pauses in the war so children could be vaccinated.
International organizations, including the United Nations and the World Health Organization, will vaccinate 640,000 children under the age of 10 after an 11-month-old baby was confirmed to have contracted the virus. WHO confirmed that Abdel Rahman Abu Al-Jidyan’s left leg became paralyzed from polio. His case is the first in Gaza in 25 years.
Dr. Tasneem Abu Al-Qambaz, who is involved in the vaccination rollout, discusses the urgency of getting children inoculated against polio, while UNRWA spokesperson Louise Wateridge said what is most urgently needed is a ceasefire and a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas.
“The polio virus is very important because the virus is very aggressive and leads to paralysis, which is irreversible,” Abu Al-Qambaz told CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife.
“So this is the urgency for doing the vaccinations.”
The campaign began in central Gaza and will move to other areas in the coming days. It will also move to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip before heading north for a final leg.
Fighting will pause for at least eight hours on three consecutive days. WHO said it will likely need to extend the campaign to a fourth day.
Dr. Tasneem Abu Al-Qambaz says rollout of the vaccine will cover thousands of children between the ages of infancy and 10 years old in an effort to stop the possible spread of polio in Gaza.
Vaccinated children will also need a booster in a month to ensure the immunization campaign’s success.
Dr. Hamid Jafari, WHO’s director of polio eradication, told CBC News that international organizations are already planning or the booster campaign in four weeks.
“When we do that second round, there will be great turnout of families. Health-care workers will be more confident,” he said.
“We may be able to add on other essential humanitarian services and items like hygiene care, nutritional supplements and things like that on the corridor that has been established for polio vaccination.”
While mobile teams continued to walk the streets of Deir al-Balah, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) held a clinic at one of its facilities in central Gaza.
One parent at the clinic was Omar Abu Sayedou, 33, who brought his three daughters for the vaccine.
“Thank God this vaccine arrived in the Gaza Strip, given the circumstances that we’re in,” he told El Saife.
At the Yaffa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, hundreds of parents crowd the hospital courtyard, children in tow. As they moved toward the table where health-care workers are administering the vaccine, there was an ease in the air because the sound of bombs and drones was missing.
Parents who reach the table lay their children down. A health official administers a dose of the vaccine in their mouths.
At another entrance to the hospital, white cars pull up with more boxes of the polio vaccine.
In July, Type 2 poliovirus was detected in six wastewater samples in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah through tests run by international organizations and Israel.
The Gaza Health Ministry declared a polio epidemic and said it was caused by the “miserable conditions” in which people in Gaza are living.
Thousands of children vaccinated so far
UNRWA spokesperson Louise Wateridge told El Saife that thousands of children had already received the immunization.
“We must continue the momentum,” she said.
Wateridge said planning for this rollout in a war zone was not an easy task as humanitarian pauses were negotiated with international organizations.
She stressed the importance of a ceasefire as a means to stop the definitive spread of polio.
“There’s a huge risk of this disease spreading in the Gaza Strip and also in the region,” Wateridge said.
“While we’re very hopeful that these humanitarian pauses will last, we really need a ceasefire.”
Jafari said he is hopeful that the humanitarian pauses will be respected so families and health-care workers can have confidence that the rollout can “proceed in a safe environment.”
“The families have put a trust, as have the health workers, in this humanitarian pause.”
Published at Sun, 01 Sep 2024 12:26:57 +0000
