Israel: Biggest Anti-Bibi Protests in a Year After Six Hostages Found Dead in Gaza

Eyyyyy.

Yikes!

I guess Bibi isn’t saving the hostages? He’s actually killing them?

No one could have predicted something like this. I mean, some people predicted it, after Bibi ordered the hostages shot from helicopters when Hamas was stealing them. But not a lot of people predicted it.

Regardless, these are the biggest protests since the war started, by a lot. The families of the hostages have been saying for 11 months that Bibi doesn’t care, but six dead goes a long way towards convincing a lot of people.

That said, as far as I can tell, the pre-October 7th protests against Bibi were bigger than this. So discontent has apparently not yet reached pre-war levels.

The Guardian:

Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Sunday night and a general strike was called amid an eruption of public outrage over the government’s handling of the war in Gaza after the deaths of six hostages being held deep underground by Hamas.

The discovery of the hostages’ bodies in Gaza over the weekend threatened to bring deep divisions over the war to breaking point. An estimated 100,000 protested in Tel Aviv, while others demonstrated in Jerusalem as pressure on the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to reach a ceasefire deal to bring the remaining hostages home reached a new peak.

The first general strike since March last year is expected to bring large parts of Israel’s economy to a halt on Monday. Government and municipal offices were due to close, as well as schools and many private businesses. Israel’s international airport, Ben Gurion, is due to shut down at 8am local time (0600 BST) for an unknown period.

On Sunday night, demonstrators cut off the Ayalon highway, the motorway running through the heart of Tel Aviv. They filled the road and lit a bonfire in the middle lane near Hashalom, drumming and singing. A few dozen police officers tried to contain the protest but were unable to push it back.

“Officer, officer, who are you protecting?” the crowd chanted, and then: “Bibi [Netanyahu], you’re killing the hostages.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the bodies of Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino were found in tunnels “dozens of metres” underground during fighting in Rafah in southern Gaza. The six were seized during Hamas’s 7 October attacks on Israel.

I don’t really believe Jews have been “dozens of meters” into the tunnels.

But hey – maybe they were pulled out by US Marines, lol.

Israel’s health ministry said a forensic examination of the bodies showed the hostages had been “murdered by Hamas terrorists in a number of shots at close range” 48 to 72 hours before they were found.

However, the findings pointing to Hamas executions did little to deflect widespread fury towards Netanyahu and his rightwing coalition for failing to agree a US-backed hostages-for-peace deal with Hamas, which has been on the negotiating table since late May.

In a statement mourning the six hostages, the prime minister blamed Hamas for refusing to accept the deal.

Oh?

He blamed Hamas, you say?

Whoever murders abductees does not want a deal,” Netanyahu said. “We, for our part, did not let up. The Israeli government is committed, and I am personally committed, to continue striving for a deal that will return all our abductees and guarantee our security and existence.”

Netanyahu’s claims were undermined by anonymous briefings to the press by security officials on Sunday, blaming his insistence on retaining strategic territory inside Gaza, particularly a strip along the Egyptian border called the Philadelphi corridor, for the failure to reach a breakthrough in the hostage negotiations.

An unnamed Hamas official was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying the hostages had been “killed by the [Israeli] occupation’s fire and bombing”, a claim denied by the IDF and contradicted by the Israeli health ministry’s findings.

Hamas did not “murder” the hostages.

It’s shocking, the nerve of running with something like that.

Israel has carpet-bombed the entirety of Gaza. Everyone was saying the hostages were going to die. Everyone knew that was going to happen.