Drake and Jennifer Lopez have joined the increasingly lengthy list of performers who’ve signed an open letter asking President Joe Biden and the U.S. Congress to push for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and the militant terror group Hamas. Last week the Artists4Ceasefire letter was sent to Biden and Congress urging them to get the parties to agree to a cessation in fighting in the three-week war.
“We urge your administration, and all world leaders, to honor all of the lives in the Holy Land and call for and facilitate a ceasefire without delay – an end to the bombing of Gaza, and the safe release of hostages,” reads the letter originally signed by Dua Lipa, Michael Stipe, Caroline Polachek, Killer Mike, Vic Mensa, Miguel, Kaytranada, Macklemore, Cate Blanchett, Joaquin Phoenix, John Cusack, Lena Waithe and others.
“More than 5,000 people have been killed in the last week and a half – a number any person of conscience knows is catastrophic. We believe all life is sacred, no matter faith or ethnicity and we condemn the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians,” the letter continued, before adding, “Half of Gaza’s two million residents are children, and more than two thirds are refugees and their descendants being forced to flee their homes. Humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach them.”
The latest conflict between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7 when thousands of Hamas soldiers poured over the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, killing more than 1,400 Israeli women, children and other civilians while taking more than 200 hostages, whose fates are still unknown. Israel has launched hundreds of retaliatory strikes since, pounding Gaza with an endless barrage of bombs and on-the-ground incursions that have reportedly killed more than 8,000 Palestinians as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced over the weekend that a ground-focused “second stage” of the war was beginning.
See the full open letter here.
