More traffic jams are expected Monday, when local authority workers conduct their own slow-moving convoy, featuring garbage trucks, buses, and work vehicles, as they journey to a 10 AM protest outside the Prime Minister's office. 
Two hundred forty local authorities in Israel went on strike Sunday morning, demanding that the state restore some NIS 3 billion out of the NIS 7 billion in budget cuts they have been subjected to over the last six years. The warning strike was called for just Sunday and Monday, but local authorities said that if the money was not restored by the end of the High Holiday season, they would go on an open-ended strike of all city services until they achieve their goals.
Besides the budget cuts, which local authorities say has badly hurt the educational system, towns are demanding that the Treasury ease up the "drought tax" that was imposed this summer, where residents will be forced to pay high surcharges if they use too much water.
Most city workers, including trash collectors, administrators, firefighters, and security guards in public institutions are on strike. While many cities are keeping their schools open for at least part of the school day, many classes have been cut, and nursery and kindergarten assistants will not be going to work either.
On Sunday morning, hundreds of firefighters, including about 40 fire trucks, slowed traffic into Jerusalem to a crawl, conducting a slow moving convoy on both Road 1 and Road 443. Firefighters say that in many local authorities they are owed back pay, with some authorities failing to pay them for months at a time. The firefighters intend to protest outside the Knesset when they get to Jerusalem. Firefighters faced off with police who tried to direct them to highway shoulders in order to get traffic through. As a result of the tie-up, there are heavy traffic jams on feeder roads from Modi'in and Beit Shemesh.
One citizen who probably won't have to worry about the traffic jams is President Shimon Peres, who was set to be released from Sheba Hospital in Ramat Gan, after fainting a day earlier. Peres is supposed to attend several meetings in Jerusalem Sunday morning, and officials told Voice of Israel government radio that he would likely be transported by helicopter to Jerusalem, because of the traffic jams.
More traffic jams are expected Monday, when local authority workers conduct their own slow-moving convoy, featuring garbage trucks, buses, and work vehicles, as they journey to a 10:00 a.m. protest outside the Prime Minister's Office.
Shlomo Buchbut, mayor of Ma'alot-Tarshicha and chairman of the national body representing local authorities, said that at least 150 local authorities were close to bankruptcy because of the government's budget cuts. "It's always the residents who pay the price for these cuts. With this strike we are trying to ensure that we don't have to raise municipal taxes, and to hopefully cancel the drought tax, that will increase outlays by families by thousands of shekels," he said.