U2 frontman Bono has spoken out against the ongoing Israel-Gaza war for the first time since the war broke out.
The war, which has killed over 50,000 people since it started in October 2023, has led to international condemnation of the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
This week, the United Nations warned of famine in Gaza and called for Israel to allow aid to be allowed into Gaza.
The UN warned that one in five people in Gaza face starvation if supplies do not arrive.
In a speech at the Ivor Nevello Awards on London on Thursday night, the Dubliner called for Israel to “be released from Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right fundamentalists that twist your sacred texts.”
“Peace creates possibilities in the most intractable situations,” he told the crowd, adding, “lord knows there are a few of them out there right now. Hamas release the hostages. Stop the war.”
“All of you protect our aid workers, they are the best of us.”
U2 received an academy fellowship at the awards ceremony, before performing Sunday Bloody Sunday and Angel Of Harlem.
Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival this year, Bono remarked “Mussolini and the little man with a moustache and his mate Goebbels had taken over the Venice film festival, so this festival was set up to fight fascism.”
The Dubliner was there to promote his new film Bono: Songs Of Surrender.
He said that the world is facing the “threat of fascism”, much as it was in the 1930s, and that Ukraine was the last bastion against the threat.
On Thursday, Netanyahu said that world leaders such as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer were “on the wrong side of history” and called for Western leaders to back Israel in the war.