The call by Israel’s largest union to paralyse the economy follows a night of massive demonstrations, with tens of thousands of protesters taking to the streets in an outpouring of grief and fury over six hostages killed in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli soldiers recovered the bodies of the six “from an underground tunnel in the Rafah area” of southern Gaza on Saturday, the military said.

Relatives and demonstrators accused the government of not doing enough to bring them back alive, and called for an immediate ceasefire to rescue the dozens still captive.

“We must stop the abandonment of the hostages… I have come to the conclusion that only our intervention can shake those who need to be shaken,” said Histadrut union chair Arnon Bar-David.

“Starting tomorrow (Monday) at six in the morning, the entire Israeli economy will go on complete strike.”

Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, 97 remain captive in Gaza, including 33 the army says are dead.

Scores were released during a one-week truce in November, with campaigners and family members believing another deal is the best option to ensure the rest return.

“We are asking our government to stop everything and to make a deal,” Yair Keshet, uncle of hostage Yarden Bibas, said during Sunday night’s protest in Tel Aviv.

Critics have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war for political gain.

“Were it not for the delays, sabotage and excuses” in months of mediation efforts, the six hostages “would likely still be alive”, campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

Six killed hostages

During protests that convulsed Tel Aviv on Sunday night, demonstrators marched past six symbolic coffins draped with the Israeli flag and carried pictures of the deceased hostages.

A handful of protesters clashed with police while some burned tyres on a blocked highway where they defied water cannon.

The six hostages were identified as Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Ori Danino, US-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin and Russian-Israeli Alexander Lobanov.

Military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said all six “were abducted alive on the morning of October 7” and “brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists shortly before we reached them”.

Qatar-based Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said they were “killed by Zionist (Israeli) bombing”, an accusation the military denied.

Israeli health ministry spokesperson Shira Solomon said the hostages were “murdered by Hamas terrorists with several close-range gunshots”, about 48 to 72 hours before their autopsies.

A senior Hamas official told AFP on condition of anonymity that “some” of the six had been “approved” for release in a potential hostage-prisoner swap under a deal yet to be agreed.

“This is not how imagined it would end, Eden, my love,” Yerushalmi’s mother tearfully told mourners at a funeral in the central city of Petah Tikva. “I wanted so bad to have you back alive.”

US President Joe Biden said he was “devastated and outraged” by the hostages’s deaths, but “still optimistic” about sealing a ceasefire deal.

The Biden administration has been leading mediation efforts along with Qatar and Egypt.

Polio vaccinations

In the besieged Gaza Strip, rescuers were digging through rubble for people buried alive by Israeli strikes on a school sheltering displaced in Gaza City.

Civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP that Sunday’s strike on the Safad School killed 11 people.

Israel’s military said it had hit a Hamas command centre.

Nearly 11 months of war have flattened much of Gaza and destroyed its water, sanitation and medical facilities, contributing to the spread of preventable diseases.

Across Gaza, a series of “humanitarian pauses” are expected to facilitate a vaccination drive after the first confirmed polio case in 25 years.

The vaccination campaign formally launched on Sunday at three health centres in central Gaza, according to Yasser Shaaban, director of Al-Awda hospital.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, called it a “race against time to reach just over 600,000 children”.

“For this to work, parties to the conflict must respect the temporary area pauses,” he posted on social media.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliation has killed at least 40,738 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

West Bank raids

In the occupied West Bank, at least 24 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched raids on Wednesday, including 14 who militant groups claimed as members.

On Saturday, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Israel to immediately end its attack on the Jenin refugee camp, saying it had received “information that Israeli soldiers are rounding up dozens of young Palestinians from their homes and interrogating them, as well as subjecting them to various forms of mistreatment, including beatings”.

An AFP photographer saw Israeli bulldozers in the Jenin city centre a day after an official said soldiers had destroyed streets and power and water had been cut off in the adjacent camp.

“(We live in) terror and fear for the children,” said Jenin resident Adel Marai Egbaria.

“No one dares to go out.”

Further south near the Tarqumiya checkpoint, Israeli police said a “shooting attack” killed three officers on Sunday.

According to the UN, at least 637 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war began.

Twenty-three Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during army operations over the same period, according to official figures.

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The court in the southern province of Minya sparked an international outcry with its initial sentencing last month, amid an extensive crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

The crackdown has extended to secular-leaning dissidents who supported Morsi's overthrow but have since turned on the army-installed regime.

The United States urged Egypt to reverse the court decision.

"Today's verdict, like the one last month, defies even the most basic standards of international justice," the White House said. "This verdict cannot be reconciled with Egypt's obligations under international human rights law."

UN 'alarmed'
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon was "alarmed" by the death sentences and feared it could impact the entire region, his spokesperson said.

"Verdicts that clearly appear not to meet basic fair trial standards, particularly those which impose the death penalty, are likely to undermine prospects for long-term stability," Ban said according to spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

The UN chief plans to discuss his concerns with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy later this week.

The Minya court, presided over by judge Said Youssef Sabry, is set to confirm the death sentences on June 21. However, it also reversed 492 of 529 previous death sentences it passed in March, commuting most of them to life imprisonment.

In Cairo, another court banned the April 6 youth movement that spearheaded the 2011 revolt which toppled strongman Hosni Mubarak, following accusations it defamed Egypt and colluded with foreign parties.

Ban also expressed concern at that decision and the jailing of three "emblematic figures" of the 2011 uprising including two founders of the youth movement.

Hearings
Under Egyptian law, death sentences are referred to the country's top Islamic scholar for an advisory opinion before being ratified. A court may choose to commute the sentences, which can later be challenged at an appeals court.

Of the 683 sentenced on Monday, only 73 are in custody, prosecutor Abdel Rahim Abdel Malek said. The others have a right to a retrial if they turn themselves in.

Monday's hearing lasted just 10 minutes, said Khaled Elkomy, a defence lawyer who was in court.

The verdict was the first against Badie, spiritual head of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, among several trials he faces along with Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders.

Some relatives waiting outside the courtroom fainted on hearing news of the verdict.

"Where is the justice?" others chanted.

'Political trial'
A fugitive from the trial, who identified himself only as Gamal and said he was a member of the Brotherhood, lashed out at the court.

"This is a political trial against those who oppose the military," said the 25-year-old, who was among the 683 sentenced Monday but who is in hiding.

The Brotherhood urged the world to act against "gross human rights violations and injustice committed by the military junta in Egypt against its own people".

Those sentenced on Monday were accused of involvement in the murder and attempted murder of policemen in Minya province on August 14, the day police killed hundreds of Morsi supporters during clashes in Cairo.

Defence lawyers boycotted the last court session, branding it "farcical".

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague also urged a review of the sentences, saying they "damage the reputation of Egypt's judicial system".

'Repressive'
Amnesty International also condemned the ruling.

"Egypt's judiciary risks becoming just another part of the authorities' repressive machinery, issuing sentences of death and life imprisonment on an industrial scale," Amnesty's Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui said in a statement.

Elkomy, the defence lawyer, said 60% of the 529 defendants sentenced in March, who include teachers and doctors, can prove they were not present during the unrest in Minya, where a police station was attacked.

Defence lawyers and relatives of defendants said those sentenced to death in March also included a man who was killed on August 14.

Last month's death sentences sent a chill through opponents of the military-installed regime, which has held mass trials of thousands of alleged Islamists since Morsi's ouster.

Amnesty says more than 1 400 people have been killed in the police crackdown since the army overthrew Morsi, Egypt's first elected and civilian leader. – AFP

Inspired by bloggers elsewhere in the Arab world, Moroccans quickly saw these personal websites as a way to circumvent censorship while debating taboo or touchy subjects — such as the monarchy, Islam or the disputed Western Sahara.

“It is a genuine revolution because everyone can comment freely on such sensitive topics,” said veteran blogger Larbi El Hilali, who set up Larbi.org.

His more than 450 posts since his blog began in late 2004 have encouraged 18 000 replies. He now gets 3 500 visitors per day, with much discussion on the Constitution — which some feel gives too much power to the king — and press freedom in a country where journalists have been slammed with fines or suspended sentences for “defamation against Islam and the monarchy”.

Though Morocco’s own national press union, SNPM, concedes that press freedom has improved, it and global watchdogs say there are still attempts to gag the media.

But El Hilali’s blog has found that “opinions are sharply divided and many people defend the status quo”, he said.

“The Blogoma is like a friendly café,” said Mehdi7, whose site weaves light-hearted news and “gossip” from the sidelines of royal visits with more serious reports on prostitution and cannabis cultivation — which the government is trying to eradicate to end a flourishing illegal drug trade.

Many bloggers

Morocco today counts 30 000 blogs for four million internet subscribers. “That’s not much compared to the 1,7-million blogs in France, but it’s a lot more than in our neighbours,” El Hilali said.

Algeria, next door, has five times fewer, according to DZblog.com, the Algerian umbrella that has counted 5 892 blogs, two million visitors and seven million page impressions since January 2006.

Tunisia is barely breaking the thousand threshold. Blogs in Tunisia and Egypt are more akin to citizen journalism sites, but with fewer residents online they draw less attention than in Morocco. About 1,6-million Tunisians surf the web, while in Egypt they number only one in 10.

User-generated web technology, however, is making an impact in the region. Wael Abbas (33), an Egyptian blogger, was decorated in November by the Washington-based International Centre for Journalists after his site was credited with getting two police officers accused of torture sentenced to three-year prison terms.

But blogs in North Africa are not without risk. Karim Amer (22) landed four years’ detention last year on charges of criticising Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Islam on his blog, Al Azhar.

And in 2002, Tunisian blogger Zouhair Yahyaoui was given a two-year sentence on charges of “publishing false information” about alleged human rights violations but released on bail a year later after three hunger strikes. He has since died.

Mehdi7 contends that “Morocco is a country where you can still run a good blog”.

“I’ve not yet heard of a blog that has been censored in Morocco, in which case the whole blogosphere here would mobilise,” he said.

Access denied

Global Voices Advocacy, however, a non-governmental agency that fights against censorship on the web, highlighted 17 countries on its “Access Denied Map”, seven of which were Arab states — including Morocco.

In May, Rabat blocked access to the video-sharing website YouTube for six days after it aired videos considered insulting to King Mohammed VI. In June, Live Journal, an overseas platform hosting two million blogs, was also shut down internally after airing material seen as backing Polisario Front rebels, who are fighting Moroccan forces in the Western Sahara.

“The authorities end up looking ridiculous if they believe they can impose censorship on sites because anyone can get round these obstacles,” said Citoyen Hmida, the prolific “doyen” of Morocco’s Blogoma.

Arab bloggers — whose language varies from Arabic to English, French and local dialects — have sought to uphold independence from the powers that be. In the Muslim-ruled Persian Gulf monarchy of Bahrain, for instance, the blogging community resolutely backed three chat-forum moderators arrested in 2005, openly announcing the time and place of demonstrations in their support.

In Morocco, “certain political groups have tried to infiltrate the Blogoma but it has shown a remarkable capacity for self-preservation”, said Moroccan web consultant Othmane Boummalif.

“These blogs are like taking a regular temperature, distinct and localised, of the daily reality,” said Mehdi7. — AFP