Israel: Murder of six hostages anger protesters

Shikma Bressler, a prominent political activist and one of the leading figures during the historic 2023 protests in Israel, told CNN she feels today’s protest is “different.”

“I think the people of Israel were educated to make life a sacred value, and now they understand that the government is violating the most basic value that allows living here. I think this is what is most clearly evident since we learned the news concerning the death of the six hostages, of our people,” Bressler said during a rally in Tel Aviv.

“I believe there’s a difference between the public ‘knowing’ something, and actually feeling it. Today, the mind connected to the emotion. The penny dropped — Israel’s government prefers that its citizens die over returning them home, returning the mandate to the people, and heading to elections,” she said.

Remember: The Israel Defense Forces said Saturday that it located and recovered the bodies of six hostages killed by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and returned them to Israeli territory. That has led to fresh anger at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for failing to secure a deal for the release of the hostages.

The chairman of Israel’s General Federation of Labor (Histadrut), Arnon Bar-David, has called for a nationwide general strike to begin Monday morning after holding what he called a “charged and difficult” meeting with representatives of hostage families in Tel Aviv.

Source: BBC