A general strike at the national level began on Sunday morning, while the hostages of the hostages protested against the government’s decision to extend the war in Gaza with a campaign to conquer the city of Gaza, rather than sign an agreement to return their loved ones.
The strike was organized by the October Council, which represents some of the members of the hostage family or the bereaved parents of those who were killed in the fights that broke out with the massacre led by Hamas in the south of Israel on October 7, 2023, as well as the Family forum with hostages and disappeared.
The forum said on Saturday evening that it was preparing nearly a million people to go through the hostages in Tel Aviv throughout the day, and tens of thousands of people to reach activities in hundreds of other sites across Israel.
The action began at 6:29 a.m. – The exact time of the day when the attack on Hamas broke out on October 7, 2023 – with a series of demonstrations with junctions and intersections across the country.
The demonstrators will be held at the intersections by distributing yellow ribbons, the symbol which represents the hostages, to passers -by, said the forum of hostages and disappeared families.
The forum published a card highlighting the locations to which demonstrations early in the morning were planned.
The main events of the day started at 7 a.m. when the October Council will declare the press of Sarona Market in Tel Aviv, opposite the military seat of Kirya.
Then, at 9 a.m., a special photography exhibition will open at Hotages Square so that the public can see them throughout the day, until 6 p.m.
The main scene of hostages square will also include speeches by parents of hostages at 10 a.m., 12 p.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., said the forum.
Solidarity steps representing specific industries will take place in Tel Aviv throughout the day, including a March of doctors at 9 a.m., and a March of students at 5 p.m.
Student walking will be followed by a statement to the press of senior academics.
Various companies and organizations participating in the strike will have representatives present at Vigils in Ortages Square throughout the day, turning on a time base, said the forum.
Then at 6 p.m., a prayer service will take place at Outages Square before the demonstrators walked with the families of Tel Aviv – Satidor Center Railway with Square Nides for a main rally at 8 p.m.
Car convoys will leave from everywhere in Israel at 4 p.m. to converge in Tel Aviv for the evening rally.
A multitude of events and demonstrations have also been planned for areas outside Tel Aviv, including a protest convoy in western Galileo, in northern Israel, and a demonstration outside the Hayam shopping center in Eilat, all south of Israel.
The demonstrators call on the Israelis to join a national strike in support of the hostages on August 16, 2025. (Benny Meshy / pro-democracy protest movement)
Some local councils have also organized their own solidarity events with hostage families, including the municipality of Haifa, which, with the hostages of the hostages, will organize a gathering at 10 a.m.
Meanwhile, a certain number of events have also been planned in communities close to the Gaza border which brought the weight of the deadly invasion of Hamas.
Several tractors’ convoys are expected to make their way along Route 232, the vital field of the south of the road turned by the kilotage where, on October 7, Hamas terrorists shot down civilians trying to flee the attack.
The local regional councils Sha’ar Hanegev and Eshkol will be on strike every Sunday, and the groups of the border city of Sderot and Ofakim nearby will also hold their own demonstrations.
In the days preceding the strike, hundreds of local authorities, companies, universities, technology companies and other organizations announced that they would join the strike or allow employees to join what they wanted.
Although Histadrut, Israel’s main labor union, announced that it would not join the strike, she said she would nevertheless support workers who plan to participate in gatherings of demonstrations on Sunday.
The union’s decision not to participate followed a meeting between the president of Histadrut, Arnon Bar-David, main representatives of the business sector and the representatives of the hostage families organizing the strike.
He explained to the families that he feared that the involvement of the powerful union would divert public discourse around the return of hostages to politics.
“If I knew that a strike – not only for a day but more – would end the question, stop war and bring the hostages back, I would go in force,” said Bar -David. “Unfortunately, and although my heart is full of anger, it has no practical results.”
Unions and organizations that have announced plans to support strike or support employees who wanted to protest include the forum of cultural and artistic institutions, the Union of employees of the Israel Airport Authority and the Israeli Bar association.
A giant Israeli flag sporting the faces of the hostages is displayed in Ortages Square in Tel Aviv, while a national strike begins, August 17, 2025. (Yair Palti / Ortages and Missing Families Forum)
A group of antigo -government demonstrations representing dozens of the country’s largest technological companies, collectively employing tens of thousands of workers, also announced that it would join the strike. Among technological companies are Wix, Fiverr, Meta, Papaya Global, Honeybook, Natural Intelligence and Fireblocks. The group also includes venture capital funds such as Qumra Capital, Pitango, Disruptive and NFX.
Terrorist groups of the Gaza Strip hold 50 hostages, including 49 of the 251 kidnapped in the Hamas of Hamas on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza. They include bodies of at least 28 dead confirmed by the FDI. Twenty would be alive, and there are serious concerns for the well-being of two others, said Israeli officials. Hamas also holds the body of a tsahal soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
The Gaza Ministry of Health managed by Hamas says that more than 60,000 people in the strip have been killed or are presumed to be dead in the fighting so far, although the assessment cannot be checked and does not make the difference between civilians and combatants.
Sharon Wrobel contributed to this report.
