Workers at Haifa port — the largest in Israel — have joined the strikes that have brought much of the country to a standstill, the port’s spokesperson Zohar Arnon told CNN Monday.
“Our workers have stopped,” Arnon said. “They are still in the port waiting for developments.”
The port in the northern Israeli city of Haifa is one of the country’s main hubs. Earlier on Monday, Israel’s main airport, Ben Gurion Tel Aviv, announced an immediate halt to all departing flights.
The Azrieli Group, a large chain of Israeli malls, also announced Monday it is also closing in support of the strikes. “We must not stand by when Israel is burning,” its chairman Dana Azrieli said in a statement.
And McDonald’s has closed all of its restaurants across the country, the company announced on Twitter Monday.
The action is part of what Israel’s largest union federation called a “historic” general strike on Monday, intended to heighten pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt his judicial overhaul.
“Stop this judicial revolution, this craziness,” Histadrut union federation leader Arnon Bar-David told Netanyahu in a televised speech.
