YESTERDAY’S General Strike across Israel was pronounced illegal by the Tel Aviv Labour Court, which ordered the Histradut union organisation to call it off from 2.30pm local time.
Histradut is Israel’s largest trade union body, representing approximately 800,000 workers.
However, despite the court ruling, Israelis stayed on the streets yesterday afternoon, and a mass demonstration was held outside the Prime Minister Netanyahu’s residence last night.
Roads were blocked throughout the day, flights at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv were halted, hospitals were operating reduced services and banks closed.
Municipalities, including Tel Aviv and Haifa, joined the strike, while many ministries, including the interior ministry and parts of the prime minister’s office, also took part.
Tens of thousands of protesters flooded the streets, while Israel’s biggest universities, including Tel Aviv University, also joined the strike.
Israeli opposition leader and former prime minister Yair Lapid said he supported the strike.
Demonstrators gathered in central Jerusalem, waving placards and chanting slogans as they stopped traffic.
Israeli police arrested protesters in Tel Aviv as hundreds of thousands took to the streets to demand the government agree to a ceasefire deal to return the captives held in Gaza.
Protesters held signs reading ‘Only a deal’ and ‘Help’, urging a deal with Hamas.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum announced several protests would take place at 19:00 (17:00 BST), yesterday afternoon, including at PM Netanyahu’s residence.
The labour court’s ruling that the strike must end was welcomed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who responded in a post on X that the court agreed with him that the strike was ‘political and illegal’.
According to Israeli media, Smotrich was responsible for filing an injunction against the action with the court.
Professor Yehuda Ullmann, chief of the surgery division at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, said: ‘We can’t stand aside and that’s why we came to strike.’
Gideon Levy, a columnist with Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, reported that the right-wing parties in Netanyahu’s government are against any concessions to Hamas. ‘They could not care less about the hostages,’ he said.
- The United Auto Workers Union, considered among the most powerful unions in America, wrote: ‘The UAW stands in solidarity with the tens of thousands of Israeli workers who withheld their labour today in support of an immediate hostage deal.
‘It is long past time for an end to this war, and on this US Labor Day we stand with workers in Israel who withheld their labour.’
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