Pop star Ed Sheeran apologised on Saturday for his handling of a controversy that erupted this week when rapper Macklemore was removed as an opening act over comments on the occupied Palestinian territories.
Breaking his silence on the issue, the British singer decried Israel’s treatment of residents in Gaza as ‘unjustifiable’.
“I’ve had to take and make difficult decisions and I am making mistakes and I’m so, so sorry,” Sheeran told an audience in Philadelphia, where he performed for the first time since Macklemore was taken off the concert tour.
At the start of the concert at Lincoln Financial Field, Sheeran called the October 2023 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis “horrific.” But he called Israel’s subsequent war, which has killed thousands in Gaza and displaced almost all of the population, “catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate.”
Sheeran also decried “systemic injustice” in the West Bank, where Israel’s right-wing coalition government has allowed a massive expansion of Jewish settlements.
The pop star’s opening statement on Saturday offered a stark change from his statements earlier in the week, when Sheeran posted on Instagram that his concert audiences “do not expect a political forum.”
Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered about half a mile from the concert venue ahead of Sheeran’s performance.
Organisers said they were there to talk to people about the conditions on the ground in Gaza and to highlight local groups advocating for Palestinians.
* Violence flared in the occupied West Bank yesterday when a suspected Palestinian gunman shot dead an Israeli man, police said, and Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian motorist who the military said was attempting to run them over.
The gunman opened fire from his vehicle at Israelis gathered at a spring near the settlement of Neve Tzuf, near Ramallah, according to the Israeli military and police.
Medics who arrived at the scene of the shooting said they found a man in a car suffering from critical gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at hospital, police said.
The gunman was located a few hours later at a hospital in Ramallah and arrested, police said.
Shortly after the shooting, the military said that its forces “eliminated” a Palestinian driver who had attempted a ramming attack on soldiers near the settlement of Ganim, further north in the West Bank. No soldiers were hurt, it said.
&uuid=(email))