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Israel’s second largest teacher’s union, the Secondary School Teacher’s Organization, reached a deal with the government to end its record-breaking, two-month teacher strike, according to Israeli news sources.

Hours before the activation of a back-to-work court injunction, the head of the SSTO, Ran Erez, signed the deal, which includes a teacher wage hike of at least 17 percent, a pledge from the government to fund efforts to reduce class sizes, and the payment of salaries to teachers for wages lost during the strike.

Not everyone applauded the deal, however. Dozens of teachers and students protested outside the Ministry of Education, saying that the agreement was incongruent with their demands. On the other side of the debate, labor officials said the SSTO unnecessarily prolonged its strike because it was offered the same deal a month ago.

The nine-week strike kept about a half-million students and 40,000 teachers from middle and high schools, according to previous reports.