Bono Calls for Hamas to Release Hostages and Netanyahu to Resign
U2 frontman Bono on Thursday called for Israel to dump Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while urging freedom for the Hamas terrorist group’s hostages and an end to the war in Gaza.
He revealed his list of geo-political demands on accepting an award in London, England, adding Israel would be best advised to act, and “be released from the far-right fundamentalists that twist your sacred texts.”
U2 were present at the 2025 Ivor Novello songwriting awards ceremony to receive the Fellowship of the Ivors Academy, the institution’s highest honour, the Guardianreports.
bono has already been awarded the highest cultural honour of France and received an honorary knighthood.
Collecting the latest award, Bono introduced an acoustic performance of Sunday Bloody Sunday and prefaced it by saying:
I used to introduce this next song by saying it was not a rebel song. It was because believing in the possibilities of peace was then, and is now, a rebellious act; and some would say a ridiculous one.
[…] To believe peace was attainable between your country and ours, between our country and itself was a ridiculous idea because peace creates possibilities in the most intractable situations and lord knows there’s a few of them out there right now.
Dublin-born Bono, 65, whose real name is Paul Hewson, added: “Hamas, release the hostages, stop the war. Israel, be released from Benjamin Netanyahu and the far-right fundamentalists that twist your sacred texts.”
Protection for aid workers was also made public: “The best of us. God, you must be so tired of us, children of Abraham, in the rubble of our certainties. Children in the rubble of our revenge. God forgive us.”
