Paloma Faith has said she has to use her “voice for the voiceless” to advocate for children caught up in the Gaza conflict because influencers and famous faces have powerful platforms to advocate for change.
The singer-songwriter, 43, joined activists from the humanitarian aid organisation Choose Love to unveil a banner at Westminster Bridge, London on Monday with a message that they claim is from a Gazan child, saying “Prime Minister I don’t want to die”.
It comes after more than 300 celebrities, activists and others, including former Match Of The Day presenter Gary Lineker, actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Brian Cox, and singers Faith and Annie Lennox, signed a Choose Love letter calling on Sir Keir Starmer to “take immediate action to end the UK’s complicity in the horrors of Gaza”.
In Westminster, Faith told the PA news agency that “it’s definitely time that people stood up and started to listen and act” amid Israel’s offensive against militant group Hamas, who are classed as a proscribed terrorist organisation by the UK government.
Faith said the message from the child is “clear and simple” and “as a mother, so harrowing to hear, and so straightforward and kind of incomprehensible that the actions of the UK Government have not been as straightforward as they should have been”.
She also said: “Unfortunately, we live in an age where people who are public-facing, celebrities, influencers are listened to and have a more powerful platform than most because of social media.
“I don’t necessarily believe it should be that way, but I’m willing to use mine to be a voice for the voiceless and all those children. (They) did not deserve to die and it shouldn’t have happened. It’s simple as that.”
Faith urged the UK Government to hear “the message that we are not going to stop campaigning for (the end of arms sales) and that words are kind of futile if actions don’t back them”.
Last month, the UK, France and Canada issued a joint statement on the conflict saying they “strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza”, and warning that the three countries “will not stand by while the (Benjamin) Netanyahu government pursues these egregious actions”.
As well as suspending UK arms sales to Israel, the Choose Love group urged Sir Keir to “use all available means” to ensure humanitarian aid gets into the territory and “make a commitment to the children of Gaza” that he would broker an “immediate and permanent ceasefire”.
Last week, the names of thousands of children killed in Gaza were read out by dozens of actors including Steve Coogan, Juliet Stevenson, Toby Jones and Emily Watson as well as Choose Love supporters in a vigil outside the Palace of Westminster.
A Government spokesman said: “As the Foreign Secretary has said, Israel’s actions are intolerable and we want to see an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, a surge of aid and a path towards long-term peace.
“We have acted at all times in a manner consistent with our legal obligations, which is why we have suspended all licences for items to the IDF that might be used in military operations in Gaza, based on our assessment that these could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of International Humanitarian Law.”
Israel says it targets only militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militant group is entrenched in populated areas.
More than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in the fighting according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.
Choose Love say they “worked closely with trusted contacts on the ground to connect with this child, and their father asked them what their message would be to the UK Prime Minister”.
