The powerful Israeli trade union center is calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call new elections

The head of Israel’s powerful trade union federation, Histadrut, urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call elections and takes responsibility for not preventing the attack by the Islamic group Hamas on October 7, while warning that it could call a general strike.

“It took us to the edge, to a place we shouldn’t have been. We are at a dead end and there is only one way out: elections,” Arnon Bar-David, leader of the Histadrut, said at an event.

The union leader has suggested holding new elections in December, when he believes the war against Hamas will be over.

“It would be a mistake to hold elections now, when the war continues”, but “the country cannot continue like this, the State of Israel needs a reset. Everyone wants something new, for new people to enter politics”, he explained . warning that it could join the growing anti-government protests that are erupting in the country.

“Maybe we need to go out into the street. I hope it’s not necessary,” she emphasized.

However, Netanyahu he categorically refused to resign from his position at a press conference.

“The last thing we need now is elections” because they would divide Israelis and give advantages to Hamas, he said, praising its work since the war broke out: “We are dismantling Hamas’s underground infrastructure, we have recovered more half the hostages and we will bring the rest.

“This is not the time for politics”He stressed, asking Israelis to “wait patiently.”

For its part, Netanyahu’s Likud party issued a statement in which it considered it “shameful that in the midst of this war, while the nation cries for unity, Histadrut president Arnon Ben-David, he decided to deal with small politics that divide the nation and weaken the war effort.

Before the war broke out on October 7, Israel was experiencing profound political and social polarizationand a massive protest movement called for the resignation of Netanyahu, who is facing three corruption trials and was pushing a controversial judicial reform.

Bar-David then joined the anti-government movement by calling for general strikes, which paralyzed much of the Israeli economy and managed to temporarily freeze the development of the reform and open a dialogue with the opposition.

In his statements, Bar-David He also accused Netanyahu of delaying a deal with Hamas for a ceasefire that will allow the release of over one hundred hostages still held by the Islamist group in the Gaza Strip.

For several months now, the protests have become increasingly louder to push Netanyahu to resign and immediately accept the release of the hostages.

This Saturday, Thousands of Israelis participated in several demonstrations in this sense in Tel Aviv, in front of the presidential residence in Jerusalem and in 50 other places in the country.

“Don’t leave them to die,” the crowd shouted, addressing Netanyahu.

Last Thursday there were also protests in front of the houses of ministers and parliamentarians to demand the end of the current government, the most right-wing in the history of Israel and which has given great power to the ultra-Orthodox and ultra-nationalists.