It’s a muggy midweek afternoon when a trail of people draped in black and white keffiyeh scarves, Palestine flags and Free Palestine slogan T-shirts begin to trickle into Wembley Arena. In the foyer of the venue, 56-year-old Kiran has just arrived from her home in Milton Keynes.
“I’d never protested in my life before October 2023,” she says. “It’s been so horrific to see what’s happening in Gaza, I felt I had to do something since if you don’t make a stand now, when would you ever? Things might feel futile but this is a way to show the world we care and that we stand together more than we are torn apart.”
Kiran is one of the 12,500 people attending Together for Palestine, a marathon four-hour musical and activist fundraising event for the civilians currently undergoing the horrors of war and genocide in Gaza. The brainchild of producer and composer Brian Eno, tonight’s concert has been 18 months in the making and its tickets sold out after only two hours. The evening features over 70 performers raising funds for the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, Palestinian Medical Relief Society and charity Taawon.
Inside the cavernous arena, a few hundred early arrivals begin to take their seats and standing positions in the pit as British producer Jamie xx and Palestinian DJ Sama’ Abdulhadi play back to back, an enlivening mix of Arabic maqam vocal melody, hammering kick drums and skittering synths.
“I felt I had to bring my seven-year-old son Louis with me today as this is a defining moment in history,” Tom, 43, says over the fast-paced breakbeats as Louis clutches a bottle of water. “I know he might not remember this when he grows up but I hope the world and the people of Palestine know that we are here.”
As the show kicks off proper with a rousing introduction by comic Guz Khan, actor Riz Ahmed highlights the diversity in the crowd. “I was raised here in Wembley and seeing you all tonight, this is what community looks like,” he says. “While world leaders and governments let the people of Palestine down, we will not.”
Claire, 71, echoes the need to show solidarity together. “I’m here with my husband and daughter and we’re based in Hampshire, where no one around us talks about what’s happening in Gaza,” she says. “It’s wonderful to be with other people who feel like us and to hopefully show the people of Gaza they haven’t been forgotten. My husband Nigel has been protesting since the 70s – it’s ongoing work.”
Early performers Hot Chip and Ibibio Sound Machine strike an upbeat, hopeful mood with their trance-infused track Melody of Love and a blast of 90s house standard Sweet Harmony. It’s a joyous vibe that carries on through the London Arab Orchestra’s stirring medley featuring Damon Albarn and a showstopping performance from Palestinian singer-songwriter Saint Levant, who transforms the arena into a makeshift wedding reception as the audience whips flags above their heads.
The testimony from aid workers and Palestinians between songs provides a deeply moving counterpoint, with journalist Yara Eid recounting the death of her family members and partner in solemn detail and surgeon Dr Victoria Rose reading a message from a colleague still on the ground in Gaza who is struggling to survive, never mind perform vital medical duties. A huge screen behind her displays the names and images of medics who have been killed, while paintings by 25-year-old Palestinian artist Malak Mattar show wide-eyed images of children tenderly embracing each other.
“I’m proud to be Jewish and I feel it’s my duty to be here and say that what is happening in Gaza right now is not in our name,” Nathan, 31, says in the foyer after Dr Rose’s speech. “It is a genocide and I condemn it in the strongest terms. I hope this show of solidarity tonight can bring people together and show the world that so many more of us are for Palestine than against it.”
As well as the advertised performances, there are several surprise appearances added to the evening’s proceedings. Over video link, a reformed Portishead perform an especially downbeat, affecting rendition of 1994’s Roads, while Richard Gere appears on stage to recount how he was last at Wembley to celebrate Nelson Mandela and protest apartheid. “I’m back here now because I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” he says. “Trump could stop this in one day – if he wants the Nobel peace prize, this is what he needs to do.”
Eno’s own all-star performance with Paul Weller and Nadine Shah meanwhile features a moving reading of Palestinian poet Khaled Juma’s poem Oh Rascal Children of Gaza, written in 2014 to mourn the 550 children killed that summer, and oud player Adnan Joubran’s lyrical, hypnotic playing adds a touch of virtuosity to their stage time, meandering effortlessly over the band’s otherwise heavy guitar distortion.
In fact, as much of the evening plays through despairing testimony, tender performances and quiet introspection, it is the breadth and depth of Palestinian artistry on display that provides hope. Pianist Faraj Suleiman’s fiery jazz fusion is delightfully proggy and strange, veering from theatrical chord stabs to intricate, fast-paced runs along the keys, while rapper El Far3i’s acoustic guitar and rhythmic vocal performance alongside actor Guy Pearce and poet Inua Ellams produces a poignant tribute to the dead Palestinian men often unaccounted for in official figures.
West Bank-born singer Nai Barghouti steals the show with her full-throated, indefatigable vocals. She performs melismatic Arabic scales on a folk standard, as well as keening phrases on the ney flute and soars through her own composition, If I Must Die, which was written to the poem of the same name by the late Palestinian doctor Refaat Alareer. As she ululates to screams from the audience, she dedicates her performance to the memory of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, underscoring the fact that while the horrors of the war continue and lives are meaninglessly lost, the legacy of Palestine’s culture lives on and cannot be destroyed.
