Twelve thousand people filled the arena for a single night of music, testimony, and solidarity—livestreamed on YouTube for the world to listen and see.
Conceived by British musician Brian Eno, the show unites what once seemed impossible: an international roster of artists and public figures stepping into a space long considered radioactive.
Paul Weller and Damon Albarn perform alongside Jamie xx, Portishead, James Blake, and PinkPantheress; Florence Pugh, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Riz Ahmed join Guy Pearce and Jameela Jamil; Palestinian performers Elyanna, Saint Levant, Lana Lubany, and El Far3i anchor the night’s emotional centre.
Yet the scale of the bill is less striking than its very existence.
For decades, naming “Palestine” carried risk: artists risked blacklisting, museum shows were pulled, concerts cancelled, careers quietly strangled.
In a Guardian op-ed, Eno said finding a venue was nearly impossible—until Wembley signed on, and tickets sold out in two hours.
The solidarity that paved the way
Ahead of the Together For Palestine concert, a video PSA circulated online featuring Billie Eilish, Finneas, and Indya Moore alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Steve Coogan, urging viewers to “pressurize your government” for a ceasefire.
Coogan implores: “Call for a ceasefire, stop the killing.”
Photographer Nan Goldin adds, “It’s always been the artist's role… to risk speaking truth to power.”
The PSA arrived amid a broader wave of cultural risk-taking since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza erupted in October 2023.
Artists4Ceasefire, founded in October 2023, called for an immediate ceasefire, humanitarian aid, and the exchange of captives and prisoners.
Other visible gestures of solidarity include Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem, Ava DuVernay, Ramy Youssef, and Mahershala Ali wearing keffiyehs and pins at red-carpet events and press conferences for months.
In 2024, American star rapper Macklemore released Hind's Hall, named after the Columbia University building renamed by pro-Palestine student protesters in honour of six-year-old Hind Rajab, killed by Israel in Gaza via 355 bullets. He donated the hit’s proceeds to the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
In August 2025, Irish rap group Kneecap faced arrest after performing a pro-Palestine song in Belfast, leading to charges under anti-terrorism laws, which sparked debates over freedom of expression and the criminalization of solidarity efforts.
Most recently, over 1,200 figures—including Cynthia Nixon, Lily Gladstone, and Hannah Einbinder—pledged not to work with Israeli companies implicated in “genocide and apartheid,” with nearly 4,000 signatories joining within days
Before a note was played at Wembley, the moral gravity of the stage was already in motion.
A snap shot of Irish actress Nicola Coughlan with English singer and actress Leigh-Anne on stage during the Together for Palestine concert at Ovo Arena Wembley. Photo courtesy of Together for Palestine.
A choir against amnesia
To grasp the significance of Together for Palestine, it helps to recall We Are the World in 1985.
On 28 January 1985, 45 of America and Europe's biggest stars, including Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Lionel Richie, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, and Tina Turner, to name a few, crowded into a Los Angeles studio, stripped of entourages and rivalries, to record We Are the World.
Produced by Quincy Jones under the guidance of Harry Belafonte, the project raised tens of millions of dollars for the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia, which claimed the lives of around one million people, with some proceeds earmarked for hunger relief in the United States.
The stars who sang in 1985 were amplifying a distant famine that no government denied, but the artists gathered on Wednesday were breaking a silence that powerful governments still enforce.
Eno frames the effort as shifting the imaginative ground: to prove Palestine can be spoken, sung, and staged without caveats. “Politics sits downstream of culture,” he wrote this week.
More than a benefit
Funds raised will go to Palestinian-led organizations, including Taawon, which runs Gaza’s largest orphan care programme; the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), delivering urgent medical care and evacuations; and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), Gaza’s primary healthcare provider.
Palestinian DJ Sama’ Abdulhadi, performing with Jamie xx, said: “Everyone has a lever. Mine is a stage. I’ll use it to amplify Palestinian voices and make space to grieve, unite, and recharge. For a free Palestine.”
Comedian and host Guz Khan added, “When you see kids in Gaza facing bombs instead of books, you realise this can’t be normalized. That silence isn’t an option… This is about using my platform to back justice and reminding people that standing up for humanity is everyone’s job.”
Interstitials curated by Palestinian theatre-maker Amir Nizar Zuabi spotlight Gaza’s surviving teachers, doctors, and aid workers, flickering between songs—living testimony from a place much of the world has stopped seeing.
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