Enter Shikari have made a speech expressing solidarity with Palestine at their huge Wembley Arena gig last night (February 17).
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The St Albans band have just finished off their massive UK arena tour at London’s arena last night, where frontman Rou Reynolds made a riveting speech in support of Palestine: “We cannot just enjoy this moment without acknowledging the fact that there are children being blown to pieces by a government and a country that has been completely lost in nationalistic and religious fervour.”
He continued to express solidarity “with the activists and actionists up and down the country who have been blocking and targeting the Israeli weapons manufacturing factories.” Reynolds also emphasise that “our country is very complicit in this atrocity”, and supported “those who are targeting the investment banks that are effectively bankrolling genocide.
“We have been yelling ‘Free Gaza’, ‘Free Palestine’ for 15 years,” he said. “I just hope to God that there is still a Gaza and a Palestine left when this fucking nightmare ends.
“So let us be grateful for tonight, we have safety. We have community, we have love, we have human connection. Let us treasure this feeling that we all have tonight.
At the time of writing, the current death toll of Palestinians in Gaza stands at 28,775, with around 1,410 Israeilis killed and around 100 Israeli hostages still remaining in Hamas captivity after the October 7 attacks. Israel is currently being urged by many Palestinian supporters not to send ground forces into Rafah on the Egyptian border, where many of the strip’s citizens are now living after areas closer to their homes became engulfed by fighting. Around 1.5million people are living in Rafah, among fears that there are few to no other places for Palestinians to seek refuge. The BBC reported “tens of thousands” gathered in London yesterday for pro-Palestine rallies.
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Enter Shikari have had a lengthy track record of speaking out on the conflict; their 2012 album ‘A Flash Flood of Colour‘ directly references Israel’s use of phosphorous bombs on the track ‘Stalemate’. They also signed an open letter for ceasefire in November last year alongside The Last Dinner Party, Architects and more.
They join bands such as IDLES, who just spoke out in solidarity with Palestine yesterday at their ‘Tangk’ launch show in Brixton.