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The bodies of six Israeli hostages, retrieved from one of Hamas’ tunnels in the Gaza Strip, has set off a chain reaction in Israel.
The country shut down for most of Monday as recriminations between the families of the hostages, Israel Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, the Israeli ceasefire negotiating team and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist allies, reverberate with the future of his coalition.
Simultaneously, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) intelligence warned that a new front had opened in the West Bank, in addition to the war in Gaza and the war on Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah.
That coincided with Israel carrying out its largest military operation in the Palestinian territory, since the second Palestinian uprising or Intifada which ended in 2005, which entered its seventh day on Tuesday. At least 30 Palestinians have been killed, including one middle-aged man who died after an hour in the custody of Israeli soldiers, with Palestinian medical teams asserting he had been tortured.
During the same period, Palestinians initiated several car bombings and attacks on Israeli settlers and security forces.
Three of the dead Israeli hostages, whom Israel said were shot dead while Hamas said they died in Israeli bombings, were meant to be released in the first part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
As the news broke, hundreds of thousands of enraged Israelis took to the streets over the weekend blaming Netanyahu for sabotaging a ceasefire deal by adding new conditions to a deal he knew Hamas would not accept.
The main point was Netanyahu refusing to withdraw Israeli forces from the Philadelphia corridor which divides Gaza from Egypt despite IDF assurances that the military could quickly re-enter the area if necessary, and despite the Israeli negotiating team and defence minister Gallant warning Netanyahu that it was either a withdrawal and a ceasefire or no withdrawal and the possible death of more hostages.
Monday’s one-day strike, called by Israel’s largest labour union Histradut, paralysed the country for almost the entire day as up to 500,000 Israelis followed the call which was initially prompted by opposition leader Yair Lapid.
Chaos reigned at Ben Gurion International Airport as most staff failed to show up. Medical facilities were reduced to skeletal public holiday operations, schools and universities closed, local municipalities, major businesses, the IT sector and councils all closed.
The strike ended after Netanyahu and Israel Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich took the case to court arguing that the strike was political and not labour-related, with Israel’s Labour Court ordering it to end by mid-afternoon.
Smotrich ordered the finance ministry to ensure that those striking were not paid for the day and accused those on strike of “serving Hamas’ interests”.
While the Israeli premier stopped the strike, which had threatened to go into Tuesday, his coalition is ripping apart at the seams, torn between those who support him and those who accuse him of destroying Israel and endangering the lives of the approximately 100 hostages still captive in Gaza.
As unrest and anger continue to simmer in Israel, the Israeli military declared that a new front has opened in the Palestinian West Bank.
While the war on Gaza in the south rages and Israel’s northern border with Lebanon remains a no-go zone, due to continued fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, previous warnings about the West Bank exploding are now becoming a reality.
For seven days, the IDF has been conducting a massive military operation in the West Bank, targeting several refugee camps, specifically the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps in the northern West Bank.
Approximately 30 Palestinians have been killed as hundreds of Israeli sol