The families of six dead hostages are furious at Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu for not negotiating a ceasefire as they march coffins through Tel Aviv following the killings at the hands of Hamas.
The Israeli military said early on Sunday that the corpses of the hostages were recovered from a tunnel beneath the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where they were apparently killed not long before their troops could reach them.
The bodies of Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino have been returned to Israel, military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. All six were captured by Hamas during the 7 October attack that ignited the Gaza war.
The discovery sparked calls for mass protests by families of the captives who said their loved ones could have been returned alive in a ceasefire deal.
Calling on the Israeli prime minister to take responsibility and explain what was holding up an agreement, The Hostage Families Forum said: “The delay in signing the deal has led to their deaths and those of many other hostages.”
Thousands of people, some of them weeping, gathered outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem.
In Tel Aviv, hostages’ relatives marched with coffins to symbolise the toll.
“We really think that the government is making these decisions for its own conservation and not for the lives of the hostages, and we need to tell them, ‘Stop!”’ said Shlomit Hacohen, a Tel Aviv resident.
Three of the six hostages found dead — including an Israeli-American — were reportedly scheduled to be released in the first phase of a cease-fire proposal discussed in July, and this only added to the sense of fury and frustration among the protesters.
“Nothing is worse than knowing that they could have been saved,” said Dana Loutaly. “Sometimes it takes something so awful to shake people up and get them out into the streets.”
US President Joe Biden spoke with Goldberg-Polin’s parents, Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, who appeared at the Democratic National Convention last month, to offer condolences, a White House official said.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “completely shocked” by the deaths.
The head of Israel’s biggest labour union called for a general strike on Monday to pressure Netanyahu’s government to bring back Israeli hostages still held by Hamas.
The call for a one-day general strike by Arnon Bar-David, whose Histadrut union represents hundreds of thousands of workers, was backed by Israel’s main manufacturers and entrepreneurs in the high-tech sector.
The alliance of some of the most powerful voices in Israel’s economy reflected the scale of public anger over the deaths of the six hostages, who were among some 250 people seized by Hamas militants on October 7 last year.
“We must reach a deal (on the return of the surviving hostages). A deal is more important than anything else,” Bar-David told a press conference. “We are getting body bags instead of a deal.”
Netanyahu, who faces growing calls to end nearly 11 months of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza with a deal that includes a ceasefire and the release of remaining hostages, said Israel would not rest until it caught those responsible.
“Whoever murders hostages – does not want a deal,” he said.
The recovered bodies were from about 250 hostages captured during the Hamas-led shock incursion into southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza on October 7 last year.
