Have the hostage deaths brought Israel to a critical point?

After almost 11 months of war that isolated and deeply divided the country, conflict has broken out in Israel.

A nationwide strike on Monday threatened to paralyze the country’s economy after six hostages held in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 were killed by Hamas, sparking mass protests by hundreds of thousands of people in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere.

The dramatic display of defiance has disrupted flights, hospitals and banks, escalating a months-long campaign to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas.

The hostages’ distraught families, much of the public and some of Netanyahu’s ministers had hoped the weekend’s events would force him to change course. But there was no immediate sign of that on Monday, as the government won an attempt to force an early end to the general strike in an Israeli labor court.

“A lot of anger”

Protesters blocked roads and marched toward government buildings demanding a ceasefire after the bodies of Israeli-American citizens Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Senior Sergeant Ori Danino were found nearly 11 months after they were taken hostage during the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.

Netanyahu and U.S. officials publicly blamed Hamas for the failure to reach an agreement, while the Israeli military continued its assault on the devastated Palestinian enclave.

But protesters remained steadfast and accused their government of abandoning the hostages, failing to negotiate a deal that would have released the remaining captives.

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“There is a lot of anger,” Nimrod Goren, a senior fellow on Israel at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told NBC News.

The fate of the six hostages found dead in Gaza, he said in a telephone interview Monday, “really reflected the deepest concerns about the hostage crisis, knowing that just a few days ago they were alive and the military pressures prevented them from being brought home.”

While public outrage in Israel has reached fever pitch, Goren said it remains to be seen whether it will prompt Netanyahu to act.

“We need to see how this momentum gains momentum because ultimately it has to lead to some political action,” he said.

“Save others”

The nationwide strike came as grieving families held funerals for loved ones they had been fighting for months to return home.

Goldberg-Polin’s funeral was attended by a large crowd on Monday, many holding Israeli flags as well as those of Hapoel Tel Aviv, the 23-year-old’s favorite soccer club, while his parents paid moving tributes to their son.

“Hersh, we failed you, we all failed you,” his father, Jon Polin, said. “You wouldn’t have failed. You would have pushed harder for justice.”

“How do we live the rest of our lives without you?” his mother, Rachel Goldberg, asked. “I pray that your death will be a turning point in this terrible situation we are all caught in.”

“Finally my sweet boy, finally, finally, finally, finally you are free,” she said.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog also spoke at the funeral. “As a man, as a father, and as the president of the state of Israel, I want to say how sorry I am,” he said. “How sorry I am that we failed to protect Hersh on that dark day. How sorry I am that we failed to bring him home.”

The funeral of 40-year-old Carmel Gata was also expected to take place the same day.

“It’s too late for Carmel. Her blood is on your hands, Netanyahu. But you can still save others,” her cousin Gil Dickmann told NBC News in Tel Aviv.

In a May poll by the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute, a majority of Jews in Israel, 56 percent, said reaching a deal to free hostages held in the Gaza Strip should be more important than continuing to expand military operations in the southern Gaza Strip.

However, despite optimism from Washington and intensified efforts in recent weeks to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas, there has been no breakthrough.

The Biden administration has repeatedly accused Hamas of blocking the deal, but U.S. and foreign officials have recently said that conditions imposed by Netanyahu have also derailed the effort. Biden told reporters Monday that Netanyahu was not doing enough to secure the deal.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday called on Israel’s security cabinet to convene a meeting and reverse a decision that had been seen as a sticking point in the negotiations, a demand that it be allowed to maintain a presence along the Philadelphia corridor that forms Gaza’s border with Egypt.

“It is too late for the kidnapped who were murdered in cold blood,” he said in a post on X. “The kidnapped who remain in Hamas captivity must return home.”

Goren repeated a similar warning, saying that if Netanyahu sticks to that condition, “the prospects for reaching an agreement in the future are almost non-existent” and that the hostages still held in the enclave “could suffer the same fate” as the last captives who died in the war.

According to Israeli officials, some 250 people were taken hostage in the October 7 Hamas attacks, while some 1,200 people were killed. They say about 100 hostages are still being held in the Gaza Strip, with about a third of them believed to be dead.

According to local authorities, more than 40,000 people have been killed during Israel’s months-long offensive in the Gaza enclave.