Israel recovers bodies of six hostages; UN agencies begin polio vaccination programme in Gaza

A polio vaccine campaign for children began in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, weeks after a 10-month-old baby was diagnosed there with the paralysing disease.

Israel’s labour federation, the Histadrut, on Sunday declared a nationwide strike to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to make a deal with Hamas after the military recovered the bodies of six hostages in Gaza.

Israel recovers bodies of six hostages

Israel recovered the bodies of six hostages who, it said, had been killed by their Hamas captors in Gaza.

The six — including a maimed Israeli-US citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose parents helped spearhead US solidarity campaigns for the hostages’ return — were discovered on Saturday by troops searching a tunnel in the southern city of Rafah, the army said.

An Israeli official told Bloomberg News their remains bore signs of execution by shooting. Izzat Al-Rishq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said the hostages had been killed in an Israeli bombing.

The discovery stunned a public already dismayed at slow-moving efforts — shepherded by the US, Qatar and Egypt — to mediate a way to wind down the almost 11-month-old war between Israel and Hamas.

Netanyahu, who has been holding firm opposing concessions demanded by Hamas for a potential ceasefire, cancelled a planned appearance to open the new school year, as well as the regular weekly Cabinet meeting.

Netanyahu made a rare public penance in a call to the parents of one of the slain hostages, saying he apologised that the state failed to save their son and the other five. His office said his military secretary had been in Moscow in an effort to secure Russian help with the hostages.

The slain hostages were mourned in the US, where President Joe Biden voiced outrage at Hamas and promised, in a statement, to keep “working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages”.

Netanyahu on Friday won the support of his security Cabinet for keeping Israeli troops in the key Gaza-Egyptian border area under any truce with Hamas.

Read more: Israel Cabinet backs keeping troops in contentious Gaza corridor

The one “nay” vote came from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who, according to a person familiar with the matter, said, enraged, that the prime minister might as well vote on executing the hostages.

Gallant had sought a Cabinet meeting for several weeks to discuss the ceasefire deal, which he said was at a “strategic crossroads”, and wasn’t notified in advance that the vote would take place. He said it would delay a truce, possibly at the cost of the lives of hostages, the person said.

But while Netanyahu’s office said the security Cabinet would meet on Sunday, the conservative prime minister gave no indication he planned to soften his tack on the negotiations — and sought to shift blame to Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by the US and European Union.

“Those who murder hostages do not want a deal,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

While the Israeli public has rallied behind the war, a 16 August poll found 63% supported a truce deal under which some hostages would be released in exchange for the freeing of Palestinian security prisoners. Only 12% opposed such a deal.

Read more: A small Gaza corridor turns into new Israel-Hamas sticking point

Anti-government protesters said they would mount demonstrations to “shut down the country” on Sunday. Yair Lapid, centrist head of the parliamentary opposition, called on the national labour federation to order a strike.

About 250 people were abducted on 7 October when Hamas stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people. More than 100 hostages were freed during a ceasefire late last year, and about 100 more remain in captivity — including 35 of them declared dead in absentia by Israel.

The Gaza war has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

“We should end this war,” Biden said earlier on Saturday when he was leaving church in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. “I think we’re on the verge of having an agreement. They’ve all said they agree on the principles, so keep your fingers crossed.”

The violence has spread to the West Bank, another territory where Palestinians seek statehood. On Sunday, Israel’s police said three of its officers were killed in a drive-by shooting on their car there. There was no immediate Palestinian claim of responsibility.

Polio vaccine campaign begins in Gaza 

A polio vaccine campaign for children began in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, weeks after a 10-month-old baby was diagnosed there with the paralysing disease.

Health officials called for a large-scale vaccination programme because unsanitary conditions after 11 months of war risked causing a major outbreak. Israel has agreed to partial pauses in the fighting to allow for vaccinations.

Read more: Israel to allow pauses for polio vaccinations in Gaza, says UN

The vaccination drive, led by United Nations agencies in collaboration with the Hamas-run health ministry, began in central Gaza. It is set to expand to camps for displaced people in the south in the coming days, with plans to cover northern Gaza next week.

The vaccine being administered is against Type-2 polio, which was declared eradicated in 2015.

Nidal Ghunim, a preventive health doctor, said that Gaza children were usually vaccinated against Type 1 and Type 3, and to a lesser degree take the oral vaccine for Type 2, which hasn’t been diagnosed in Gaza for 25 years.

The goal is to reach more than 6,000 children, from newborns to 10-year-olds.

“The war caused a severe disruption in the vaccination programme, leaving many children and newborns without any form of vaccination” as a lack of clean water and the spread of sewage increase disease risks, Ghunim said in an interview.

Israel labour federation declares strike as pressure for hostage deal grows

Israel’s labour federation, the Histadrut, on Sunday declared a nationwide strike to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to make a deal with Hamas after the military recovered the bodies of six hostages in Gaza.

The group, representing the majority of the country’s trade unionists, said members would walk out beginning at 6am local time on Monday. The action will include Ben-Gurion International Airport, the main airport in the country.

“It is no longer possible to stand idly by,” Histadrut chair Arnon Bar-David said in a televised statement. “This thing — of Jews being murdered in the tunnels of Gaza — is unconscionable and it has to stop. A deal must be reached, and a deal is more important than anything else.”

A forum of Israel’s top 200 business leaders including owners, chairs, and chief operating officers announced in a statement the private sector would join the strike.

Two assailants die in West Bank car attacks amid Israeli sweeps

A car exploded at a West Bank petrol station and another after crashing into a nearby Israeli settlement in what authorities described as terrorist attacks by assailants who were both killed.

The incidents came amid intensifying operations by the Israeli military in the West Bank, including sweeps targeting Iranian-backed Palestinian armed groups elsewhere in the territory.

No one was reported injured in the blast that followed a fire in the vehicle at Gush Etzion junction, but the army said in a statement that a man who emerged from it was shot and “eliminated” while trying to attack first responders. Medics said they treated two people for gunshot injuries.

In the second incident, a motorist tried to ram a guard at the entrance to Karmei Tzur settlement and made it inside, where he was “neutralised” by troops, according to the army statement. Medics said the car exploded with the driver in it after it collided with a second vehicle, injuring a man.

The assailants’ identities were not immediately clear. The army said it was unable to determine immediately whether the two incidents were connected.

The West Bank has experienced increased Israeli-Palestinian violence since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip in October. Israel says Iran, which sponsors Gaza’s dominant Hamas militants, is trying to foment an insurgency in the West Bank, where the Palestinian economy has suffered from military closures.

In an operation launched early on Wednesday in northerly West Bank towns near the boundary with Israel, the military said it had killed 20 Palestinian fighters, including from Hamas, and detained 17 suspects.

Israel security Cabinet votes to keep troops in Gaza’s Philadelphi corridor

Israel’s government voted to maintain a military presence in Gaza’s so-called Philadelphi corridor, an issue that’s proved a key sticking point in ceasefire talks with Hamas.

Netanyahu’s security cabinet almost all approved the policy, according to a readout of Thursday’s meeting seen by Bloomberg.

Hamas has insisted that Israel’s forces leave the area, which runs along the Egypt-Gaza border at the south of the Palestinian territory, once a truce starts. The problem is vexing mediators as they try to persuade the two sides to pause and eventually end the devastating war in Gaza, now almost into its 12th month.

In the last few weeks, Israel has taken a firmer stance on the Philadelphi corridor, with Netanyahu saying his soldiers are needed there to prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons into Gaza from Egypt.

The Israeli Cabinet members said their vote would bring a ceasefire closer because it would make clear to Hamas that it needs to compromise, according to the read-out.

Netanyahu said the 7 October attack by Hamas, which triggered the war in Gaza, “was possible as a result of the Philadelphi axis not being in Israel’s hands”, said the read-ou. “The prime minister said this reality will not repeat itself and that this time Israel is determined to keep this border under its control.”

Two ministers didn’t vote in favour. They were Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was against the measure, and Itamar Ben Gvir, the national security minister, who abstained.

Ben Gvir opted not to vote because Netanyahu proposed some drawdown of troops and the national security minister wanted no reduction at all, according to an official familiar with the matter.

Gallant opposed the proposal because he argued it would delay a truce — rather than force Hamas to accept one more quickly — and potentially cost the lives of more hostages, according to an official close to the minister. The defence minister has been at odds with Netanyahu over many aspects of the war and they have frequently clashed in public. The vote was also put to the security Cabinet without warning, said the official.

The ceasefire talks, mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt, have dragged on for months and continued this week among junior negotiators in Doha.

The corridor isn’t the only obstacle. Israel and Hamas are yet to agree on how many hostages will be released from Gaza in the first phase of a deal, as well as how many Palestinians will be freed from Israeli jails.

In addition, Netanyahu says Israel will keep forces along a second corridor called Netzarim, which bisects Gaza, to block Hamas fighters moving back into northern parts of the territory. Hamas is against that demand. DM

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