Striking high school teachers and the government continue to blame each other for failure to achieve progress in negotiations to open the schools, which have been shut down for 29 days as of Monday. Several junior high schools teachers also are on strike as teachers threatened to widen the work sanctions.

The Finance Ministry accused the teachers' union of concentrating on the strike rather than a solution, and noted that Sunday's meeting with union leader Ran Erez had to be postponed until the afternoon after he was not able to arrive in the morning. "Erez is busy with his strike and demonstrating and not in finding a true solution," a ministry official said. Erez replied that the comment was another attempt to attack him personally.