President Biden and Vice President Harris are scheduled to meet in the White House Situation Room on Monday with the U.S. hostage deal negotiating team following Hamas' killing of six hostages, including U.S. citizen Hersh Goldberg Pollin, on Saturday.
The White House said the focus of the meeting was to discuss working toward a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages. The meeting was closed to reporters.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other cities on Sunday after the bodies of the Gaza hostages were returned to Israel, stoking frustration and anger at the country's leadership for failing to reach a ceasefire agreement to release the remaining hostages.
Israeli media put the number of protesters in Israel's major cities at an estimated 500,000, many of whom demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu take further steps to bring home the remaining 101 hostages.
Israel's largest trade union plans mass strike after six hostages' bodies recovered
Protesters in Tel Aviv, Israel, on September 1, 2024, protest against the government and show support for the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. (Reuters/Florion Goga)
Reuters reported that Israeli leaders estimated that about a third of the remaining hostages were dead.
Protests remained active on Sunday, but union leaders called on workers to join a one-day strike on Monday.
“Instead of an agreement, they will give us body bags,” Arnon Bar David, head of the Histadrut labor federation, told reporters on Sunday, according to Reuters. “We have to reach an agreement. An agreement is more important than anything else.”
American hostage Hersh Goldberg Pollin, five others 'brutally murdered' by Hamas before being rescued, IDF reports
Law enforcement officers detain a protester during an anti-government rally in Tel Aviv, Israel, on September 1, 2024. (Reuters/Florion Goga)
The Histadrut Labor Federation is Israel's main labor union, representing hundreds of thousands of workers. Bar-David's call for a one-day strike was backed by the country's manufacturers and tech entrepreneurs.
The Israeli army said the bodies of hostages Carmel Gat, 40, Hersh Goldberg Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Alexander Lobanov, 32, Almog Salsi, 27, and Ori Danino, 25, had been recovered from a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
A polio vaccination campaign has begun in the war-torn Gaza Strip as violence erupts in the occupied West Bank.
Israel says it has retrieved the bodies of six hostages in a “complex rescue operation” and that the bodies are being kept in a humanitarian area
Police use a water cannon during a protest in Tel Aviv, Israel, on September 1, 2024. (Reuters/Tomer Appelbaum)
The bodies of the six hostages were later returned to Israel, according to Israeli military spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagari.
An Israeli Health Ministry spokesman said a forensic analysis of the body revealed that the hostages had been “killed by Hamas terrorists with multiple gunshots at close range” 48 to 72 hours earlier.
Netanyahu mourns deaths of six hostages rescued in Gaza, vows to 'finish it off' with Hamas
Protesters block a main road in Tel Aviv, Israel, on September 1, 2024, as conflict continues in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas. (Reuters/Florion Goga)
Protesters reacted to the news by blocking roads in Jerusalem and demonstrating outside Netanyahu's residence, while in Tel Aviv protesters blocked a major highway while carrying flags bearing pictures of the slain hostages.
Police reportedly arrested around 20 Israelis across the country during the protests, Reuters reported.
Defense minister says Israel must 'expand objectives' of war to bring northerners home
On September 1, 2024, protesters rallied in Tel Aviv after the bodies of the six hostages were returned to Israel. (Reuters/Florion Goga)
After the hostages' bodies were recovered, Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a statement he was “deeply shocked” by the murders.
“Those who kill abductees do not want an agreement. We are living in difficult times. The heart of the entire nation is torn apart,” Netanyahu said.
Israeli security forces clear participants in a demonstration in front of the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem on September 1, 2024. (REUTERS/Ronen Zvurn)
“Along with all Israelis, I am deeply shocked by the brutal and cold-blooded murder of the six abduction victims.”
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War has been ongoing in the Middle East since Hamas launched a series of attacks on Israel on October 7, which Israel declared war on shortly after. An estimated 257 Israeli hostages were trapped in Gaza when the war began, and 101 hostages remain there today. Of the remaining 101 hostages, 66 are believed to be alive, four of whom are U.S. citizens.
Fox News Digital's Landon Mion and Emma Colton and Reuters contributed to this report.
