al jazeera

      Israeli forces continued to pound the Gaza Strip, killing dozens of Palestinians, including 11 sheltering at a school in northern Gaza City and four travelling in a car near central Deir el-Balah.

      Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities in Israel, demanding a ceasefire deal after the bodies of six more captives were recovered from Gaza. The country is also set for a general strike.

      In the occupied West Bank, the death toll from Israel’s large-scale raids rose to 26 as the Israeli siege on the Jenin refugee camp entered a sixth day, leaving Palestinians without access to food, water, power and the internet.

      At least 40,738 people have been killed and 94,154 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7.

      Israel bombs several towns in south Lebanon

      The Israeli military said its fighter jets bombed a Hezbollah rocket launcher in Bint Jabal in southern Lebanon and carried out artillery attacks on Kfarchouba and Shebaa,

      Earlier on Sunday, Israeli jets also hit another Hezbollah launcher in Ayta al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, as well as the group’s buildings in Beit Lif, Taybeh and Odaisseh, it said.

      Will the mass protests in Israel make a difference?

      Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and an international adviser to Jewish Voice for Peace, described the mass protests in Israel as well as the upcoming strike action as a “big deal”.

      “It seems this is the biggest set of protests that we’ve seen since the beginning of this round of horrific assaults on Gaza that began after October 7. The question will be whether the quantitative increase – it’s now up to about 500,000 [protesters] apparently – whether that becomes a qualitative difference in the impact on government decisions,” she told Al Jazeera from Washington, DC.

      “They’re talking about a strike that would involve the health sector, shutting down the international airport which is very key for the Israeli economy, as well as there’s been calls from the tech sector and from manufacturing to shut down factories and shut down the the tech world. Those are huge components of the Israeli economy,” she said.

      “So that means there will be a huge impact on the government – whether it’s enough to change the position of Netanyahu and his closest allies remains very unclear. But that is a very big step to take and […] that hasn’t happened in at least a couple of years.”