Israeli protesters took to the streets for a second day and the largest trade union launched a general strike to press the government to reach a deal to return hostages still held by Hamas, after six more captives were found dead in Gaza. The strike disrupted transport and medical services in several Israeli districts and many shops and businesses were closed after the head of the Histadrut union, which represents hundreds of thousands of workers, called a national stoppage. The recovery at the weekend of the six hostages, who authorities said were shot dead between just 48-72 hours before being found by Israeli forces, triggered a wave of grief and fury in Israel, prompting at least half a million people to take to the streets in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a ceasefire agreement with Palestinian militant group Hamas to bring the remaining 101 hostages home. As Israelis take their anger to the streets to demand a Gaza hostage deal, FRANCE 24’s Nadia Massih is joined by Israeli political commentator Ori Goldberg. "Israel has defined two goals for this war: the destruction of Hamas and the return of the hostages," explains Mr. Goldberg. "For the past eleven months, we have perpetuated, we have encouraged the lie that those two goals are commensurate, and perhaps even complimentary." And now, Mr. Goldberg asserts, the "preventable" deaths of the 6 hostages that has shocked the nation has "snapped that connection: Israelis now realize there’s a contradiction between the return of the hostages and the destruction of Hamas. We are still unable, as a collective, as a people, to call for an end to the war. We are very much attached to the notion of security." And now Israelis are discovering a cruel, even ruthless, irony in the notion of security and pursuing national defense at all costs: "This devotion to security can actually kill us."
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