Tom Morello has passionately criticised the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, calling on them to “STOP KILLING CHILDREN”.
Since Hamas’ attack on Israeli citizens at the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023 that killed over 1100 people and saw 250 taken as hostages, multiple UN human-rights experts and UN bodies have stated that Israel’s military actions in Gaza may amount to genocide, and the International Court of Justice has found claims of genocide plausible.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 61,158 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. Israel rejects the genocide accusations and denies committing any war crimes, maintaining that its operations are lawful acts of self-defence.
In a lengthy post on Instagram on Monday (August 11), the Rage Against The Machine legend attacked the actions of the Benjamin Netanyahu government. “Anti-semitism is real,” he wrote. “Anti-semitism, religious and racial hatred, intolerance and bigotry of ANY kind should ALWAYS be condemned and confronted. One can believe this and also without any contradiction say: STOP KILLING CHILDREN.”
“Stop starving children to death. Stop burning children alive in their tents. Stop sniping hungry children in the head who are waiting in line for food. Stop blowing up children in ‘safe zones’. Stop maiming children. Stop orphaning children. Stop funding the killing and maiming and orphaning of children. Stop leaving children to die in incubators. Stop making excuses for killing children. Stop bragging about killing children on social media.”
Pairing his comments with a photo of starving children, his rant continued: “Stop saying that when you kill children, starve children to death, burn children alive in their tents and snipe hungry children in the head while they wait in line for food that it’s someone else’s fault. Stop lying about killing children. Stop persecuting artists for saying “stop killing children”. Stop arresting students for saying “stop killing children.” Stop ignoring the passionate voices of thousands of Jewish people in Israel and around the world who are pleading, “Stop killing children!” Stop pretending that killing tens of thousands of children is making anyone “safer.””
#MetGala2025 pic.twitter.com/hO7PSzE5zZ
— Tom Morello (@tmorello) May 6, 2025
“Stop thinking that just because you ban books, bully the universities into approved narratives and murder the journalists that people won’t remember you killed the children. Stop giving standing ovations to the unrepentant architect of the killing of children when he gloats before Congress. Stop refusing to hold the killers of children and the funders of the killers of children accountable for their war crimes. Stop being silent about the killing of children. STOP. KILLING. CHILDREN. NOW.”
Morello has previously praised Kneecap for “speaking truth to power” and criticising the Israeli government, saying the Irish trio are “clearly the Rage Against The Machine of now”. Those comments prompted an angry response from Disturbed’s David Draiman, who called him a “straight up c**t”.
This week, the members of U2 shared a lengthy statement of their own on the Israel-Gaza crisis, with Bono saying Netanyahu’s government “deserves our categorical and unequivocal condemnation”.
Countless other musicians have spoken out on the issue, with Damon Albarn recently describing what is happening in Gaza as a “genocide”, saying “we cannot deny the Palestinians their existence”.