RSS
Irish Rap Group Kneecap Denies Supporting Hamas, Hezbollah While Again Accusing Israel of ‘Genocide’
Mo Chara (Naoise O Caireallain), Moglai Bap (Liam Og O Hannaidh), Rich Peppiatt and DJ Provai of Kneecap attend the 2025 BAFTAs on February 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Isabel Infantes
The Irish rap trio Kneecap clarified on Monday that it does not support Hamas and Hezbollah, despite recently resurfaced footage showing the group glorifying the US- and UK-designated terrorist organizations at a concert last year.
Footage circulating on social media from a Kneecap concert in November 2024, at the Kentish Town Forum in London, showed one member of the group shouting at the audience “Free Palestine … up Hamas, up Hezbollah” before walking off stage. The Kneecap member had a Hezbollah flag draped over his shoulder as he made the remarks.
The concert took place a little over a year after the Hamas-led deadly rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, during which terrorists murdered 1,200 people and took 251 hostages back to the Gaza Strip. The group members of Kneecap go by the stage names DJ Próvaí, Mo Chara, and Móglaí Bap.
It is illegal to express support for Hamas and Hezbollah, both Iran-backed Islamist terror groups, in the UK. Metropolitan Police said on Sunday that videos from the concert are being assessed by its counterterrorism unit “to determine whether any further police investigation may be required.”
Kneecap said in a released statement on Monday that “we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah.”
“We condemn all attacks on civilians, always. It is never okay. We know this more than anyone, given our nation’s history,” the group added, in a statement posted on social media. “They want you to believe words are more harmful than genocide. Establishment figures, desperate to silence us, have combed through hundreds of hours of footage and interviews, extracting a handful of words from months or years ago to manufacture moral hysteria.”
The Metropolitan Police counterterrorism unit is also assessing video from another Kneecap concert in London in November 2023, during which one member of Kneecap said: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP [Member of Parliament].”
Kneecap explained in its statement on Monday that it rejects “any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual. Ever.” The group also apologized to the families of murdered British MPs Sir David Amess and Jo Cox, who were offended by the “kill your local MP” comment from 2023. The group said, “We send our heartfelt apologies, we never intended to cause you hurt.”
“An extract of footage, deliberately taken out of all context, is now being exploited and weaponized, as if it were a call to action,” the group claimed. “This distortion is not only absurd – it is a transparent effort to derail the real conversation.”
Kneecap then began to spew hateful and anti-Israel rhetoric by accusing the Jewish state of genocide, falsely claiming that 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip “are currently being starved to death by Israel” and alleging that “children were being systematically executed” by Israel. The group has made similar anti-Israel comments many times in the past, including on social media.
“This is where real anger and outrage should be directed towards,” the group suggested. “Kneecap’s message has always been — and remains — one of love, inclusion, and hope. This is why our music resonates across generations, countries, classes, and cultures and has brought hundreds of thousands of people to our gigs. No smear campaign will change that.”
Footage from Kneecap’s 2023 and 2024 concerts resurfaced online last week and sparked controversy following the anti-Israel messaging that the group shared on stage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California earlier this month. Since the Coachella incident, two major music festivals in Germany rescinded invitations to have Kneecap perform.
Other music festivals around the world are facing pressure from pro-Israel activists to pull the Irish group from its lineup of performers, and Kneecap was dropped from its US booking agency and lost its US work visa. The UK government, British politicians, and pro-Israel supporters around the world have also condemned the group’s hateful comments and actions, with some even calling for the trio to be prosecuted.
Kneecap responded to the criticism in its statement on Monday.
“Suddenly, days after calling out the US administration at Coachella to applause and solidarity, there is an avalanche of outrage and condemnation by the political classes of Britain,” the group said. “The real crimes are not in our performances; the real crimes are the silence and complicity of those in power. Shame on them.”
Along with the statement, Kneecap uploaded on social media a photo that showed a wall with a spray-painted message that said: “Thank you * Kneecap * for being the voice of the oppressed you [sic] music and activism will for all of history. [Love] From Gaza.” A heart was spray painted beside the message.
The post Irish Rap Group Kneecap Denies Supporting Hamas, Hezbollah While Again Accusing Israel of ‘Genocide’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Former Columbia University President Appointed as UK Economic Adviser
Columbia University administrators and faculty, led by President Minouche Shafik, testified before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, 2024. Photo: Jack Gruber/Reuters Connect
i24 News – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has named Minouche Shafik, former president of Columbia University, as his chief economic adviser at Downing Street, a move aimed at stabilizing the country’s fragile economy and averting a potential budget crisis.
Shafik, an economist of Egyptian origin with dual British and American nationality, has held senior roles at the Bank of England, the IMF, and the World Bank.
She later led the London School of Economics and was elevated to the House of Lords in 2020.
Her tenure in the United States was more turbulent. Shafik stepped down as president of Columbia University in 2024 after just a year in office, amid fierce criticism over her handling of pro-Palestinian protests following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza.
US officials accused her of failing to confront antisemitism on campus, while students and faculty condemned her decision to call in police to dismantle protest encampments.
Since returning to Britain, Shafik has played an active role in policy and cultural institutions. She advised Foreign Secretary David Lammy on international aid reform, has chaired the Victoria & Albert Museum since January, and led the “Economy 2030” inquiry for the Resolution Foundation, where she argued for reforms to the UK’s system of wealth taxation.
RSS
Israel Mulls West Bank Annexation in Response to Moves to Recognize Palestine
The Jordan Valley. Photo: Юкатан via Wikimedia Commons.
Israel is considering annexation in the West Bank as a possible response to France and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state, according to three Israeli officials and the idea will be discussed further on Sunday, another official said.
Extension of Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank – de facto annexation of land captured in the 1967 Middle East war – was on the agenda for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet meeting late on Sunday that is expected to focus on the Gaza war, a member of the small circle of ministers said.
It is unclear where precisely any such measure would be applied and when, whether only in Israeli settlements or some of them, or in specific areas of the West Bank like the Jordan Valley and whether any concrete steps, which would likely entail a lengthy legislative process, would follow discussions.
Any step toward annexation in the West Bank would likely draw widespread condemnation from the Palestinians, who seek the territory for a future state, as well as Arab and Western countries. It is unclear where US President Donald Trump stands on the matter. The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar did not respond to a request for comment on whether Saar had discussed the move with his US counterpart Marco Rubio during his visit to Washington last week.
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the prime minister supports annexation and if so, where.
A past pledge by Netanyahu to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley was scrapped in 2020 in favor of normalizing ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Abraham Accords brokered by Trump in his first term in office.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States said on Friday it would not allow Abbas to travel to New York for the United Nations gathering of world leaders, where several US allies are set to recognize Palestine as a state.
RSS
Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli forces pounded the suburbs of Gaza City overnight from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was set on Sunday to discuss a plan to seize the city.
Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighborhoods of Gaza City, said the territory had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday and on Sunday, forcing families to seek shelter in the western parts of the city.
The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past three weeks, and on Friday it ended temporary pauses in the area that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a “dangerous combat zone.”
“They are crawling into the heart of the city where hundreds of thousands are sheltering, from the east, north, and south, while bombing those areas from the air and ground to scare people to leave,” said Rezik Salah, a father of two, from Sheikh Radwan.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu’s security cabinet will convene on Sunday evening to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as Hamas’ last bastion.
A full-scale offensive is not expected to start for weeks. Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in.
HAMAS SPOKESPERSON TARGETED
Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israeli forces had targeted Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing. Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Abu Ubaida was killed. Two Hamas officials contacted by Reuters did not respond to requests for comment.
Gaza health authorities said 15 people, including five children, were killed in the attack on a residential building in the heart of Gaza City.
Abu Ubaida, also known as Hozayfa Al-Khalout, is a well-known figure to Palestinians and Israelis alike, close to Hamas’ top military leaders and in charge of delivering the group’s messages, often via video, for around two decades, delivering statements while wearing a red keffiyeh that concealed his face.
The US targeted him with sanctions in April 2024, accusing him of leading the “cyber influence department” of al-Qassam Brigades.
In his last statement on Friday, he warned that the planned Israeli offensive on Gaza City would endanger the hostages.
On Saturday, Red Cross head Mirjana Spoljaric said an evacuation from the city would provoke a massive population displacement that no other area in the enclave is equipped to absorb, with shortages of food, shelter and medical supplies.
“People who have relatives in the south left to stay with them. Others, including myself, didn’t find a space as Deir Al-Balah and Mawasi are overcrowded,” said Ghada, a mother of five from the city’s Sabra neighborhood.
Around half of the enclave’s more than 2 million people are presently in Gaza City. Several thousand were estimated to have left the city for central and southern areas of the enclave.
Israel’s military has warned its political leaders that the offensive is endangering hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in the past few weeks.