The Israel Defense Forces announced on Sunday morning that it recovered the bodies of six hostages, all abducted alive by Hamas on October 7, in a tunnel in southern Rafah overnight.
Israeli forces found the hostages — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Alex Lobanov, 32, Carmel Gat, 40, and Almog Sarusi, 27 — with multiple gunshot wounds.
The discovery unleashed an outpouring of rage and grief among Israelis, many of whom have taken to the streets in the hundreds of thousands to demonstrate for a hostage deal.
At a press conference Sunday morning, IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said the hostages “were cruelly murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we got to them.”
Israel’s Health Ministry concurred with Hagari, concluding from autopsies that the hostages were killed just a few days prior to their discovery, shot multiple times from a close range.
“Their bodies were found during the fighting in Rafah, in a tunnel about a kilometer away from the tunnel from which we rescued Farhan al-Qadi a few days ago,” Hagari said.
He emphasized that Israeli forces were unaware of the hostages’ exact whereabouts until discovering them in the tunnel.
On Sunday, the families of Sarusi, Danino, Yerushalmi and Lobanov held funerals for their deceased loved ones. Goldberg-Polin and Gat were laid to rest on Monday, in Jerusalem and Be’eri, respectively.
While Gat’s funeral was closed to the public, the Goldberg-Polin family hosted an open funeral, attracting thousands to Har Hamenuchot Cemetery in Jerusalem.
Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the parents of the deceased, emerged as one of the most prominent hostage families over the past year not only for their constant presence at Israeli rallies, but their appeals to leaders across the world.
The American-Israeli couple gained national attention in the US last month when they spoke in support of a hostage deal at the Democratic National Convention.
“For 330 days, Mama and I sought the proverbial stone that we could turn over to save you. Maybe, just maybe, your death is the stone, the fuel that will bring home the remaining 101 hostages,” Jon Polin eulogized on Monday.
“Od lo avda tikvateinu,” he added, quoting in Hebrew a line from Israel’s national anthem: “We have not yet lost hope.”
Nationwide strike, mass protests
The night following Hagari’s announcement, hundreds of thousands of grieving Israelis took to the streets in mass protest, flying Israeli flags with yellow ribbons in the center, demanding the government reach a hostage deal.
Organizers claimed nearly 300,000 turned out on Sunday to demonstrate in Tel Aviv alone, with around 200,000 in other Israeli cities.
“The Israeli public spoke loudly yesterday when over half a million people filled the streets, demonstrating their support for a deal,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the largest organization representing relatives of the hostages, in a statement Monday night.
Arnon Bar-David, who chairs the Histadrut, Israel’s largest trade union, ordered a general strike for Monday to shut down Israel’s economy and pressure Netanyahu to reach a deal.
“We are getting body bags instead of a deal. I have come to the conclusion that only our intervention might move those who need to be moved,” he said at a press conference after meeting with representatives of the hostage families.
The strike garnered support from opposition politicians including opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, as well as workers’ organizations.
“Without the return of the hostages we will not be able to end the war, we will not be able to rehabilitate ourselves as a society and we will not be able to begin to rehabilitate the Israeli economy,” said Ron Tomer, president of the Manufacturers Association of Israel.
Bar-David intended for the strike to last one day, but called it off following a ruling by Tel Aviv’s labor court declaring the move political and barring its continuation.
The ruling was the result of a petition from a smaller, right-leaning hostage families organization, the Tikvah Forum, which not only decried the strike but called on Netanyahu to cease all hostage negotiations with Hamas following their murder of the six captives.
The strike encountered fierce opposition from many on Israel’s political right, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who denounced Bar-David as “representing the interests of Hamas” by calling for “a shutdown that harms the State of Israel during wartime.”
A number of municipalities and local councils in Israel including Jerusalem, Ashdod, Efrat and Ma’ale Adumim also refused to participate.
Thousands of Israelis nevertheless continued to protest into Monday evening, blocking roads and calling for an immediate deal to free the remaining hostages.
Netanyahu has come under intense criticism in recent weeks from many hostage families and even members of his own war cabinet due to his insistence on maintaining Israeli troops in the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip of land on the Gaza-Egypt border.
Control over the route would allow Israel to monitor movement and prevent arms trafficking between Egypt and the Palestinian enclave. But the premier’s stipulation is a non-starter for Hamas and Egypt, the latter a key player in the indirect negotiations for a hostage-ceasefire deal.
Netanyahu stressed the Philadelphi Corridor’s strategic importance in a press conference on Monday night, calling it “Hamas’s pipeline for oxygen and rearmament.”
In the US, the hostages’ murder prompted President Joe Biden to meet with American negotiators on Monday in hopes of speeding up the negotiations process.
When asked by a reporter on his way to the meeting if he thought Netanyahu was doing enough to secure a hostage deal, he responded: “No.”
‘Ongoing abandonment’
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum denounced Netanyahu a number of times since the discovery of the murdered captives and urged Israelis to protest for a deal.
“We call to Netanyahu: Stop hiding. Provide the public with a justification for this ongoing abandonment,” the Forum said in a statement on Sunday.
The organization has long insisted on its apolitical nature, but grew markedly more critical of the prime minister as more time passed without a hostage deal.
“The delay in signing the deal has led to their deaths and those of many other hostages. Over the past few months, 8 hostages were rescued alive through military operations, compared to 105 hostages released in a deal last November. Ori, Almog, Hersh, Carmel, Alexander, and Eden could have all been back home with their families,” it continued.
Gil Dickmann, the cousin of Carmel Gat and prominent hostage families activist, described the captives’ cause as “the fight of all Israelis,” and vowed to continue protesting for a deal.
On X, formerly Twitter, Dickmann posted a message from Gat’s family: “Take to the streets, stop the abandonment, stop the government, reach a deal. Don’t settle for one day — shut down everything until there is a deal. We have 101 more hostages to rescue.”
