The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly characterized today’s general strike in Israel, in which hundreds of thousands of Israelis called on the government to reach an agreement for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza, “embarrassing”and that it actually shows support for Hamas.

The head of Israel’s largest trade union, the Histadrut, yesterday called for a general strike today after six Israeli hostages were found dead in Gaza. The protests are intended to force the Netanyahu government to finalize a deal with the above goals, amid growing anger at Netanyahu inside the country for insisting on demands that block a deal with Hamas.

The strike was halted by a court order this afternoon, although the Hostage Families Support Forum encouraged the public to continue the protests.

Netanyahu during a cabinet meeting vowed that Hamas would “pay the price for killing the hostages”. The prime minister reportedly ordered the government to prepare recommendations within the next 48 hours for a strong response to Hamas.

The Israeli Ministry of Health announced yesterday that the hostages were executed by “point-of-contact” fire approximately 48 to 72 hours later before the post-mortem of the bodies which took place yesterday Sunday morning.

According to reports, the prime minister also defended the decision approved by the cabinet to maintain Israel’s permanent military presence in the so-called Philadelphia Corridor, a small strip of land on the border of Egypt and the Gaza Strip, under any possible deal.

Netanyahu’s insistence on keeping troops in that corridor to prevent Hamas from transferring weapons from Egypt is widely seen as one of the key obstacles to a deal with Hamas in talks brokered by Egypt and Qatar.

THE Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallad he too called on the prime minister to finalize a ceasefire agreement with Hamas so that the hostages from Gaza could return home. He also called on Netanyahu to reverse the above decision, citing “an unnecessary restriction we have placed on ourselves.”

Earlier today, in an apparent hardening of the US administration’s stance on Netanyahu, US President Joe Biden said he did not believe the Israeli prime minister was doing enough to secure a deal to free Gaza hostages.