A general strike threatened to bring Israel to a halt on Monday, after the killing of six captives in Gaza sparked an outburst of public fury at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's failure to secure a ceasefire-for-hostages deal.

The country's largest labor union, known as Histadrut, threatened to shut down the "entire" economy, with its chairman Arnon Bar-David warning on Sunday that Israel was "in a downward spiral, and we don't stop receiving body bags."

Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport halted departures and arrivals of flights for just over two hours starting at 8 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET), though flights later resumed.

The general strike is the largest in Israel since March 2023, when a similar mass walkout over Netanyahu's controversial attempts to overhaul the country's judiciary brought much of the economy to a standstill.