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British Band Denies Support for Yahya Sinwar After Showing Footage of Late Hamas Leader at UK Concert
Hamas leader and Oct. 7 pogrom mastermind Yahya Sinwar addressing a rally in Gaza. Photo: Reuters/braheem Abu Mustafa
The British trip-hop group Massive Attack released a statement on Monday in response to controversy surrounding a video montage it displayed at a recent concert in the United Kingdom that included footage of the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who masterminded the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel
“Massive Attack categorically reject any suggestion that footage or reportage used as part of an artistic digital collage in our live show seeks to glorify or celebrate any featured subject,” the Bristol-based band — who are avid critics of Israel – said in a statement shared on social media. “To isolate a single section of reportage from the artistic context within which it sits – a digital array that spans a wide variety of issues and themes … – is tantamount to a willful device to create conditions for misinterpretation, or distortion.”
Massive Attack headlined LIDO Festival on Friday night at London’s Victoria Park and during their set, they showcased a video montage reportedly titled “Open the doors to the merchants of death.” It included real-life footage of Sinwar’s family members, including the late terrorist leader himself, walking through a Hamas terror tunnel underneath the Gaza Strip on Oct. 10, 2023.
Sinwar orchestrated the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack that took place three days earlier in southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were murdered and 251 others were taken as hostages back to Gaza. Sinwar was killed during an Israeli military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah in October 2024. The footage of Sinwar and his family members walking through the Hamas tunnel that Massive Attack showcased on Friday night was released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) last year.
Alex Gandler, deputy spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the band’s display of the footage was “just disgusting.”
“People have completely lost the plot,” he wrote in a post on X. “They are aligning themselves with the worst humans. not [sic] even hiding their hatred anymore.”
Massive Attack said in its statement on Monday that the film loop featuring footage of Sinwar “interplays with scenes from Jean Cocteau’s film ‘Orpheus,’ creating both a placement and implicit tone of horrified lament; that an individual of power can take people down into hell.”
“It would be bizarre (and perhaps revealing) that any observer of the live show films would solely home in on the Sinwar/IDF footage and completely overlook all other controversial figures featured in the reportage loops,” the group added. “Would ‘x’ observer suggest we sought to glorify Vladimir Putin, who appears in four loops? Or Donald Trump, who appears in several? Or J. Edgar Hoover? Or indeed the IDF soldiers who feature in the exact same location reportage as the Yahya Sinwar footage cited by various social media accounts? Unfortunately, the only reasonable conclusion is that this level of deliberate context removal, and such a leap of misinterpretation, has political motivations.”
Massive Attack concluded by claiming that artists who “consistently speak out against Israeli war crimes, apartheid, and human rights abuses, and in defense of the Palestinian people” face “determined and spurious attempts to discredit us, as a deterrent to us from speaking out.”
They stated: “These spurious attempts will always fail.”
Massive Attack has participated in a cultural boycott of Israel since 1999. During their show on Friday night, the group also displayed on the screen on stage a video message calling for the release of Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti. The secretary general of the Fatah movement in the West Bank was arrested by Israel in 2002 and is serving five life terms for the murder of Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada.
The band showed footage of the arrested Palestinian political leader declaring that “security will be achieved by one way: by peace.” Massive Attack then displayed an alleged quote by Nelson Mandela from 2002. Barghouti’s lawyer at the time quoted Mandela as saying: “What is happening to Barghouti is exactly the same as what happened to me.” Afterwards, an image of a massive Palestinian flag adorned the screen along with the message “Free Palestine.” Several Palestinian flags were also waved by audience members throughout the performance.
Massive Attack was also joined on stage during their set at the LIDO Festival by actor and activist Khalid Abdalla and American rapper Yasiin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def. Abdalla, who was introduced as a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, rallied the crowd to make some noise “if you want your favorite artists to stand up for Palestine.” He also claimed that the Palestine solidarity movement is “the civil rights movement, the anti-apartheid movement [and] the anti-genocide movement of our time in which ‘never again’ means never again for anyone.” Abdalla was referencing the “Never Again” slogan that is commonly used to commemorate the Holocaust and as a pledge to ensure that similar atrocities will not happen again.
“Dance for freedom and a free, free Palestine,” Abdalla shouted at the audience who gathered at the Massive Attack performance on Friday night. He also reportedly called for an immediate ceasefire to end the Israel-Hamas war and the distribution of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, according to NME.
A day before their performance at the Lido Festival, Massive Attack played in Manchester’s Co-Op Live. Before their set, they released a statement condemning the arena’s new corporate sponsorship deal with Barclays, claiming it has a “profoundly unethical corporate identity” because of its alleged “billions of dollars of investments in arms companies that supply Israel in its genocidal onslaught of Gaza, and war crimes in the West Bank.”
The band said after its insistence, owners of Co-Op Live agreed to remove from the arena all physical and digital Barclays livery and logos and on Massive Attack’s show page on the arena website. The group also added that “no show tickets will go to Barclays.”
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Israeli Cruise Ship Targeted Again as Pro-Palestinian Protests Escalate in Greece
Greek riot police clash with pro-Palestinian protesters near the port of Rhodes during a demonstration targeting an Israeli cruise ship. Photo: Screenshot
Pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with Greek riot police on Monday on the island of Rhodes as they attempted to block an Israeli cruise ship from docking at the island’s main port.
The MS Crown Iris — operated by Israeli cruise line Mano Maritime — was once again targeted by anti-Israel activists this week.
Demonstrations against the war in Gaza took place during the ship’s scheduled stop on the island, where more than 600 passengers were set to disembark.
According to videos circulating on social media, riot police can be seen confronting a group of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered near the dock, who shouted antisemitic slogans like “Freedom for Palestine.”
As authorities worked to control the crowd, tensions escalated and brief clashes broke out.
Ένταση στο λιμάνι της Ροδου με την άφιξη Ισραηλινών τουριστών, πολλες προσαγωγές.
Συνελήφθη υποψήφια βουλευτής της Πλεύσης ελευθερίας. pic.twitter.com/gAPnUnxu1A
— Ακροκεντρώος (@akrokentrwos_2) July 28, 2025
However, unlike a previous incident, passengers were able to disembark from the cruise ship without any major interruptions.
Last week, approximately 1,600 Israeli passengers expecting a peaceful stop on their cruise were unable to disembark from a ship docked on the island of Syros after a pro-Palestinian protest erupted at the port, raising safety concerns.
Around 300 protesters had gathered at the dock to protest against the war in Gaza, while Syros Port Authority police guarded the area and intervened to prevent violence until the ship departed.
Amid the large anti-Israel protest, the cruise company chose to divert the ship to Limassol, Cyprus.
In videos circulating on social media, protesters were seen waving Palestinian flags and holding banners with slogans such as “Stop the Genocide” and “No AC [Air Conditioning] in Hell,” while chanting antisemitic slogans.
Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents have surged to alarming levels across Europe. This recent incident appears to be just one of the latest in a wave of anti-Jewish hate crimes that Greece and other countries have witnessed in recent months.
Earlier this month in Athens, a group of pro-Palestinian activists vandalized an Israeli restaurant, shouting antisemitic slurs and spray-painting graffiti with slogans such as “No Zionist is safe here.”
The attackers also posted a sign on one of the restaurant’s windows that read, “All IDF soldiers are war criminals — we don’t want you here,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Last month, an Israeli tourist was attacked by a group of pro-Palestinian activists after they overheard him using Google Maps in Hebrew while navigating through Athens.
When the attackers realized the victim was speaking Hebrew, they began physically assaulting him while shouting antisemitic slurs.
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Ritchie Torres Says Netanyahu Has Done ‘Irreparable’ Harm to Democratic Party Relationship With Israel
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) standing at the US Capitol in February of 2023. Photo: Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), one of Israel’s most vocal supporters in Congress, delivered pointed criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, saying the longtime leader has “done harm” to Israel’s relationship with the Democratic Party and called for an end to the war in Gaza.
“If you’re a Democrat, and if you’re a Democrat of color and if you’re a Black Democrat, you take immense pride in Barack Obama. He represents one of the greatest achievements in politics. We take great pride in his presidency,” Torres said in an interview with . “To see a foreign leader visibly disrespect him in the manner that Bibi Netanyahu did, I feel did irreparable damage to the relationship with the Democratic Party.”
Torres offered a gloomy assessment of Netanyahu’s relationship with the Democratic party, arguing that “the damage may be irreparable.” He also cautioned that support for the Jewish state is rapidly “eroding” according to various polls.
Furthermore, Torres stated that despite his strident support for Israel, he does not “consider myself having a good relationship with the Israeli government.”
Torres said that Netanyahu “made a terrible mistake” in establishing a cozy relationship with President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, arguing that the Israeli premier politicized the US-Israel relationship. The progressive lawmaker said that there is a “legitimate perception that the present Israeli government is just aligned with the Republican Party.”
The remarks represent a notable shift from Torres, a New York Democrat who has historically defended Israel amid bipartisan divisions over the war. While maintaining his commitment to Israel’s security, Torres said Netanyahu’s government has failed to articulate a clear endgame in Gaza and warned that the ongoing military campaign is undermining both humanitarian values and strategic interests.
“There’s a real need to end the war, secure the release of the hostages, bring humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in distress.”
Torres cited prominent Israeli journalists and media figures that have warned that Gaza has approached “catastrophic” levels of hunger and that famine might be looming without a rapid policy shift.
Torres’s comments come amid growing pressure from the Democratic base on centrist and progressive Democrats alike to take a firmer stance on Israel’s military operations, which have resulted in the deaths of more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Israel launched its campaign following the October 7 Hamas attack that killed approximately 1,200 people and took over 200 hostages, according to Israeli officials.
Torres’s comments underscore a growing divide within the Democratic Party over the U.S.-Israel relationship. While the party remains broadly supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself, a significant faction ,including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) condemned the war in Gaza and called for a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel.
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Israeli Defense Firm Lands Huge Deal With Germany
An Elbit Systems Ltd. Hermes 900 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is seen at Elbit’s drone factory in Rehovot, Israel, June 28, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Orel Cohen
On Monday, Elbit Systems Ltd., a military contractor based in Israel, announced it had received a $260 million government contract from Germany to spend six years installing Directional Infrared Counter Measures (DIRCM) self-protection systems for defending Germany’s A400M aircraft fleet.
The contract is just the latest in a string of blockbuster deals between Israeli defense firms and international militaries. Israeli defense exports to Europe jumped to 54% of overall defense exports last year, up from just over 33% in 2023, according to the Israeli media outlet Globes.
Elbit’s defense system works to counter infrared-guided missiles, with a focus on mobile anti-aircraft weapons. It offers the ability to track missile threats as they happen and also provides automatic protection without needed human action.
Other countries which have deployed the system include Israel, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Brazil. In February, Morocco announced plans to purchase 36 Atmos 2000 self-propelled artillery systems from Elbit, making Israel the country’s third largest weapons supplier.
“This contract further strengthens Elbit Systems’ position as a leading global provider of DIRCM solutions,” Elbit president and CEO Bezhalel Machlis said. “Our systems are already trusted by numerous air forces and defense organizations around the world, and we are proud to support Germany in enhancing the protection of their strategic air assets. Our successful collaboration with Airbus DS on this important program is highly valued, and we are pleased that our advanced self-protection systems will contribute to the safety and operational readiness of the German A400M fleet.”
The announcement prompted Elbit’s share price to jump 1 percent on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).
Since Israel’s 12-day war against Iran, Israel’s financial markets have been buoyed by significant foreign investment and renewed investor confidence. Over the past year, the TASE has repeatedly broken past its all-time highs, despite Israel’s multi-front wars.
On Friday, Germany announced that it would not join France in recognizing a Palestinian state. A government spokesperson said “Israel’s security is of paramount importance to the German government” and that “the German government therefore has no plans to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term.”
On Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated that the country had no plans to sanction Israel and that “for now, we want to await the foreign minister’s trip and the talks that will be held with the Israeli government in the coming days.”
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