By Reuters | Images Staff

Copyright dawn

London bore witness to its largest fundraising concert for Palestine with Together for Palestine (T4P) at the OVO Arena in Wembley on Wednesday. The event aimed to raise funds for Palestinian-led organisations working on the ground in Gaza, such as Taawon and Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.

With several Palestinian and non-Palestinian actors, singers and activists in the line-up, performers indulged in musical and spoken word performances while raising awareness about Israel’s war on Gaza. British comedian Guz Khan hosted the ceremony with actor Riz Ahmed joining him to open the show.

By 10pm, actor and activist Jameela Jamil announced the concert had already raised $2 million (£1.5 m), reported The Guardian. The total amount raised by the event is yet to be confirmed.

The musical talents included British musician Brian Eno, who was one of the concert’s organisers. Eno performed a poem followed by a musical ensemble performance with talents like guitarist Paul Weller and Palestinian oud player Adnan Joubran. Palestinian singer Saint Levant charged up the crowd with his performance, ending with a reminder that Palestine’s nightmare began 75 years ago and goes far deeper than just this current iteration of violence, which started in October of 2023.

Calls for a ceasefire, sanctions against Israel and countering genocide were echoed by various performers. Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah urged the audience to offer their tributes to healthcare workers in Palestine, followed by a pre-recorded performance by the British band Portishead that reunited only for T4P. The United Nations’ envoy for Palestine, Francesca Albanese, reminded the audience that giving up was not an option. Speaking to cheers from the crowd, Albanese said, “Palestine will be free and we will all be free. We will all be more equal and human.”

Actor Benedict Cumberbatch read a poem by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, while Florence Pugh called out everyone who has yet to speak up about Palestine, saying, “Silence in the face of such suffering is not neutrality. It is complicity. And empathy should not be this hard and it should have never been this hard.”

Nicola Coughlan echoed Pugh’s sentiments, saying, “There are many artists that I love, and that I know you love, that have hundreds of millions of followers, and they’re saying nothing in this moment.”

Actor Richard Gere also made an appearance, recounting how he once introduced Dire Straits at the venue for the Nelson Mandela Benefit Concert in 1988. But now, Gere added, the spotlight needed to be on “our Palestinian brothers and sisters”. Gere said his country’s president, Donald Trump, needed to end this war if he wished to win the Nobel Prize.

Journalist Mehdi Hasan shed light on over 270 Palestinian journalists who have died since October 7, 2023, leading the audience in chants of “You can’t bomb the truth away.” Football star Eric Cantona called out the hypocrisy of football governing bodies banning Russia from competing internationally four days after Moscow invaded Ukraine, while Israel is untouched, even 716 days into its genocidal campaign.

A vibrant song-and-dance performance closed off the show with the London Arab Orchestra collaborating with Juzour Dance Collective to perform popular Palestinian protest songs like ‘Dammi Falastini’ (‘My Blood is Palestinian’).
The performance was also accompanied by the musical talents of Damon Albarn and his band Gorillaz.

Earlier, actors Cillian Murphy, Joaquin Phoenix and Javier Bardem joined singer Billie Eilish, Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai and a string of other celebrities in a video talking about the concert and emphasising the need for activism to end this crisis.

On Tuesday, a UN enquiry report officially declared that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to genocide, as over 65,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Defence Forces in the territory, according to Reuters.

A statement from the UN Human Rights office said at least 75 Palestinian prisoners had died in Israeli detention since the war began in 2023.