Already and this this is the Daily OS.
This is the Daily OS.
Oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Tuesday, the third of September. I'm zara, i'm emma. Tens of thousands of people have marched through Israel's main cities calling for an immediate deal to release hostages who remain held captive by Hamas. It comes after Israeli forces recovered the bodies of six hostages in Gaza over the weekend. Major unions have now called to shut down the economy, setting off one of the largest protests in Israel since October seventh.
We're going to explain this latest development in today's Deep Dive. But first, m what's making headlines.
A former childcare worker has pleaded guilty to three hundred and seven child abuse offences in a Queensland court. Ashley Paul Griffith was arrested in twenty twenty two and charged with abusing multiple children in Brisbane, Sydney and Italy. The Australian Federal Police initially charged the man, who worked at a series of childcare centers, with over sixteen hundred child abuse offences against ninety one children, but Most of these
were later dropped. The judge is yet to set a date for the sentencing of the three hundred and seven charges. Griffith pled guilty too, he did not apply for bail.
A senior animal keeper at Dreamworld has been taken to hospital after being bidden by a tiger at the Gold Coast theme park. Queensland Ambulance Service that a forty seven year old woman is in a stable condition after sustaining serious lacerations and puncture wounds during an incident on Monday. QAS Acting district director Justin Payne said luckily there was
really good first aid provided at the scene. Dreamworld described the incident as isolated and rare, and said the park will be conducting a thorough review accordingly.
Alternative for Germany is on track to become the first far right party to win a regional German election since World War II. Exit polls from the country's state elections show the AfD picked up nearly thirty three percent of votes in the central German state of Turingia. The region's second most popular party, the Christian Democratic Union, received around
twenty four percent of the vote. The far right party also received a high proportion of votes in Saxony in eastern Germany, where the AfD came in second place with over thirty percent of votes.
And today's good news, Astronomers have spotted two galaxies merging together almost thirteen billion years ago. The two galaxies are forming what astronomers are calling a monster galaxy, one of the most illuminated objects in the universe. Because the galaxies are so far away, their light is taking a long time to reach Earth, which means scientists have spotted something
that happened relatively soon after the Big Bang. Findings could support research and understanding into early evolution and black holes.
Coming up today's deep dive, But first a quick break.
Protests have erupted across Israel as hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets to demand a deal that would see hostages returned and an end to the war. Now it comes after Israel announced it had recovered the bodies of hostages in.
Gaza so Zara, A big development over the weekend, But this has been a near year long conflict. Can you bring us up to speed with what those developments were over the weekend?
Yeah? So, on Sunday morning our time Australian time, the world first learned that bodies had been found in Gaza. There was very little other information that was released at that time, and the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces said that it was taking that time to identify the bodies and to tell the families of those people. Hours later, it was confirmed by the IDF that it had recovered the bodies of six hostages. There were three men and three women, and their bodies were recovered in a tunnel
underneath Rafa in Gaza. The hostages were named as Carmel gutt ed En, Jeroshalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, Ori Denino, and Hirsh Goldberg Poland.
There has of course been very public campaigning to bring all the hostages home. The hostage has taken on October seven, But arguably one of the more high profile hostage names that listeners might be familiar with is Hirsh Goldberg, Poland. And that's because of the campaign led by his parents.
Yeah, exactly, so. Hirsh was an American Israeli dual citizen and his parents were extremely active in both the US and Israeli media and political landscapes. Just recently, his parents spoke at the Democratic National Convention before Kamala Harris was confirmed. Here's what they said at the DNC.
There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East. In a competition of pain, there are no winners.
Throughout their speech, the parents of hersh called for an immediate deal that would see their son and the other hostages returned and an end to the war in Gaza.
So the DNC was in the middle of last month. Do we know if the hostages were still alive.
Then it understood that they were alive, and according to the Israeli Defense Forces, the hostages were killed shortly before they were found by the military. The Ministry of Health in Israel claimed that the hostages had been killed by multiple close range gunshots within the previous forty eight to seventy two hours, as the IDF was drawing closer to finding them. So the DNC, as you said, was a couple of weeks ago, and it's understood that they were killed far more recently than that.
So that is the information that was made public on Sunday when we found out about these hostages. What was the response in the wake of that news?
Almost immediately, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to protest and to call for an immediate deal to be reached. And when we're talking there about a deal, they are asking for the hostages to be brought home and for an end to the war. In Gaza, Israel's most powerful labor union, the Hista Krut, called for sweeping strike action across the country. We had the head of the union, a non bar David, call on the whole country to come to a standstill and unite in a
shared cry to bring the hostages back. He criticized the government for prioritizing quote narrow considerations and interests over rescuing the hostages. It wasn't just the labor union that was out there in force. The Hostages Families Forum joined those calls for a strike and said that it was in order to achieve the immediate implementation of a deal to
release the hostages. So what we have seen now is that workers from a range of industries, both private and public sector jobs, really all took to the streets to strike. Many turned out in Tel Aviv, and protesters also gathered outside PM Netanyahu's office in Western Jerusalem. They could be heard chanting things like now now, and they were urging, as I said, the government to reach that deal to release the hostages immediately.
So, this very broad and intense kind of protest action on the streets of Israel calling for a deal, which has been in the works for months. It has felt like we've been maybe close to a breakthrough every so often that there seems to be some momentum that things are aligning for a ceasefire deal, but of course that hasn't happened yet. What is the latest on a deal?
You're right, it has felt like we've been on the kind of precipice of reaching a deal for a while, but it hasn't happened yet. For many, many months, countries including Qatar and the US have tried to mediate talks to broker a deal between Israel and Hamas. That deal would see the ceasefire in Gaza, where the Gazan Health Ministry says that forty thousand people have been killed, and that that ceasefire would be in exchange for the release
of the remaining hostages. We believe that there are some one hundred and one remaining hostages still. In a statement over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Netanya, who blamed Tamas and said that it had refused to hold genuine negotiations. On the other side, Humas has repeatedly blamed Israel for not agreeing to a permanent ceasefire, and that seems to be this point that keeps coming up in negotiations.
Okay, So these latest pushes internally in Israel from Israeli people themselves are for that deal to happen quicker, for this agreement to be expedited. What has the political response been to those strikes.
Yeah, there has been quite a significant political fallout. So Israel's opposition leader Yailapired joined protesters in the city of Tel Aviv, and those protesters were really coming out in force against the Natanya government. In a post about the protests, he said, the people of Israel came en mass to tell the Cabinet of death. That's what he's referring to the government, as we want the hostages alive at home. They can't keep dying there. That's a direct quote from Lapid.
It's also interesting to note that a recent poll that was published by the Israeli broadcaster Channel twelve so that more than two thirds of Israeli voters don't want Netanyahu to run as Prime minister again. So that gives a bit of a sense as to the kind of political unrest that's brewing at the same time as the country continues it's nearly year long war against Humas in Gaza.
So I mean, it's polling data, so I suppose, you know, we cannot be entirely certain in its accuracy, but two thirds of voters who don't want Netanyahu to run as PM again, that is a significant swing against the government of the day in terms of their protest action. The strikes that we've seen on the ground across Israel this weekend. Has the government respond to that?
We heard from Finance Minister Betsalel Smotrich, who asked national authorities to stop the strike from taking place in the first place. He said, and I quote, these issues are not the subject of a strike by labor organizations, and there's no connection between them and labor relations in Israel. I think I should just clarify that he's there not talking about the Labor Party. Can be confusing when you're listening,
but he is referring to the union movement there. He accused the Union movement of trying to advance a political opinion. The strikes, though, are scheduled to continue throughout the week, so we'll be interesting to see if the government can stop them or whether it continues to pick up in you know, momentum and significance as the week goes on and as more information about those hostages is released.
Before we wrap up today 'sara, I just wanted to ask you, with such a ground swell against the government in Israel, and you know, a seemingly mounting kind of groundswell against Nemyahu, is there an election coming up? Is there a vote where that kind of sentiment is going to be put to the test?
Another is early election is not set to happen for a couple of years still, And when he was asked earlier this year, Nettanno, who confirmed that he wouldn't go to an early election during the war, that said he could be ousted. But I don't know that that would be a likely scenario when there is so much upheaple and so much conflict in the region. So who knows. We'll have to wait and see, but there certainly seems to be this growing discontent domestically.
We'll wait and see what happens. Thank you so much Zara for taking us through that today and if there are any steps towards deal made in the wake of these protests and strikes, we will continue covering this issue on the dally Os in here on the podcast. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the daly Os. We'll be back again with another episode tomorrow, but until then, have a great day.
My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Kalgotin woman from Gadigal Country.
The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestrate island and nations.
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.