After at the beginning of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, U2 frontman Bono dedicated a song during the band's performance to revelers at the music festival in Reim, who were massacred in large numbers. On Monday night during a performance in Las Vegas, Bono spoke again about the war between Israel and Hamas and called for peace.
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In a video posted on the band's social media platforms, the Irish singer is seen onstage discussing the Gaza war. "To see what the children of Abraham have been doing to each other all over the world for millennia as well as this very day. Christians, Muslims, Jews - it's shocking. It's bewildering to see the suffering of Palestinian children after we saw the suffering of Israeli children."
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Not the first time U2 frontman Bono has talked about the Gaza war from the stage
(Photo: Getty Images)
"I understand how ridiculous 'love thy enemy' sounds right now. We can't live with 'love thy neighbor' even in our band, in our country, but it is a divine command and not advice. Easy to say, hard to do," he continued.
After that, the musician performed the song "Peace on Earth," changing the lyrics to include Israeli and Palestinian names: "Peace on Earth, we need it now... They're reading names out over the radio, the folks the rest of us will never get to know… Gal and Ayat, Hind and Mila. Their lives are bigger than any big idea."
Bono often speaks out on social issues, and just last weekend he paid tribute to Alexei Navalny , the Russian opposition leader who died unexpectedly in prison last week.
"Next week it will be two years since Putin's invasion. Next in line will be Poland, then Lithuania, East Germany; Who knows where else this man will go," said the musician on stage. "For these people, 'freedom' is not just a word in a song; for them 'Freedom' is the most important word in the world. So important, that Ukrainians fight and die for it. So important, that Alexei Navalny chose to give up his life for it."
Two days after the Hamas massacre on October 7, the band paid tribute to the revelers at the music festival in Kibbutz Reim, dedicating the song "Pride" ("In the Name of Love") to them. "I want to sing for our brothers and sisters, who they themselves were singing at the Supernova Sukkot Festival in Israel," the Irish singer said on stage, "we sing for those, our people, our kind of people, music people, playful, experimental people, our kind of people, we sing for them."
During the same performance, he also changed the lyrics of the song to remember the dead, "Early morning, October 7 / The sun rises in the desert sky / Stars of David, they took your life / But they could not take the your pride!"