Israel’s largest labor group is poised for a nationwide strike on Monday, the strongest push yet to force the government into a Gaza cease-fire and secure the release of hostages held by Hamas.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in cities around the nation on Sunday — in what appeared to be the largest protests since the Oct. 7 attacks — after the bodies of six hostages were found in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip. Each was shot repeatedly, not long before being discovered, medical examiners said.

Both the protests and the planned strike reflect deep anger at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who critics say is prolonging the war rather than prioritizing the safe return of the roughly 100 remaining hostages in Gaza. The military conflict has already spread to the West Bank and to neighboring Lebanon, threatening to engulf the region in a wider war.

Netanyahu has “been driven primarily by a desire to retain power with a narrow, very radical messianic coalition in the Israeli government,” said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, a 36-year-old Israeli-American.

“He’s preferred that, at least to date, over the well-being of all the hostages,” Dekel-Chen said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation.

Despite the pressure, there was no sign Netanyahu was prepared to shift course. “Those who murder hostages do not want a deal,” he said in a statement.

A Security Cabinet meeting ended Sunday evening without action on a proposal from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to drop Netanyahu’s insistence that Israeli troops remain in the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt — a key sticking point in talks with Hamas, two officials told Bloomberg.

Gallant had warned in a cabinet meeting on Friday that not dropping the demand would amount to the execution of hostages.

Netanyahu has defended his conditions as necessary to ensure that Hamas doesn’t use a truce to rearm, regroup and weather the Israeli campaign to destroy it. Should Hamas endure, government officials have warned, that would spell more hostage-taking in the future.

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Saturday that he believed “we’re on the verge of having an agreement,” though the last active talks broke up inconclusively in Cairo last weekend. He also promised, in a statement, to keep “working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”

Histadrut, the labor group representing the majority of Israel’s trade unionists, on Sunday declared a nationwide strike beginning Monday morning. The action will include Ben-Gurion International, Israel’s main airport.

“It is no longer possible to stand idly by,” Histadrut Chairman Arnon Bar-David said in a televised statement. “This thing — of Jews being murdered in the tunnels of Gaza — is unconscionable and it has to stop. A deal must be reached, and a deal is more important than anything else.”

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange will remain open, though some major banks were expected to be closed. Government ministries, local municipalities, the postal service and universities also were set to be shut down.

Israel’s finance minister said he asked for a Supreme Court injunction against the strike and warned civil servants they wouldn’t be paid for time off taken to participate.

The slain hostages included a maimed Israeli-U.S. citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23. His parents became among the most high-profile advocates for the hostages, meeting with Biden and other world leaders, and speaking at the U.S. Democratic National Convention to a standing ovation. Biden spoke with his parents, Rachel and Jon, on Sunday, a White House official said.

“For 11 months, the Israeli government led by Netanyahu failed to do what a government is expected to do – bring its sons & daughters home,” the Hostage Families Forum posted on X. “If it weren’t for his thwarting, excuses & spin, the hostages whose deaths were announced this morning would probably be alive.”

Another of the slain hostages was Carmel Gat, 40, an occupational therapist. She was abducted on Oct. 7 from her parents’ home in Kibbutz Be’eri, a collective farming community. Her mother was killed in the attack. Some hostages released earlier said she’d helped them enormously in captivity, teaching them yoga and meditation.

The others were Eden Yerushalmi, 24, who was studying to be a Pilates instructor; Alexander Lobanov, 33, a married father of two who’d been working at a music festival that was attacked by Hamas gunmen; Almog Sarusi, 27, who was at the festival with his girlfriend, who was wounded; and Ori Danino, 25, the oldest of five siblings, who was planning to begin studies in electrical engineering.

Hamas said the hostages were killed by Israeli bombs.

About 250 people were abducted on Oct. 7 when Hamas — considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union — stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people. More than 100 hostages were freed during a cease-fire late last year, and about 100 more remain in captivity, including 35 declared dead in absentia by Israel.

More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the enclave’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

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