After he was criticised for his silence on the subject, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has made a statement regarding the war in Gaza, saying Benjamin Netanyahu and his Israeli administration are “extremists” who “need to be stopped”.

He also criticised Hamas, saying the organisation “chooses too to hide behind the suffering of its people”.

In October 2024, he was heckled during a solo concert in Melbourne by a man who asked Yorke: “How could you be silent?” regarding the death toll in the war. A flustered Yorke rebutted him and briefly left the stage.

More broadly, Radiohead have been criticised for performing in Tel Aviv in 2017, with Yorke saying at the time: “Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government.” Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood has recently been criticised for performing with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa, with UK venues cancelling his concerts after protests.

Yorke has now made a statement about the Australian incident and the situation in Gaza, saying the October concert “didn’t really seem like the best moment to discuss the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Afterwards, I remained in shock that my supposed silence was somehow being taken as complicity, and I struggled to find an adequate way to respond to this and to carry on with the rest of the shows on the tour.

“That silence, my attempt to show respect for all those who are suffering and those who have died, and to not trivialise it in a few words, has allowed other opportunistic groups to use intimidation and defamation to fill in the blanks, and I regret giving them this chance. This has had a heavy toll on my mental health.”

Yorke said he thought it would be “self-evident” from his music “that I could not possibly support any form of extremism or dehumanisation of others.” He added:

I think Netanyahu and his crew of extremists are totally out of control and need to be stopped, and that the international community should put all the pressure it can on them to cease. Their excuse of self-defence has long since worn thin and has been replaced by a transparent desire to take control of Gaza and the West Bank permanently.

I believe this ultra-nationalist administration has hidden itself behind a terrified & grieving people and used them to deflect any criticism, using that fear and grief to further their ultra-nationalist agenda with terrible consequences, as we see now with the horrific blockade of aid to Gaza …

At the same time the unquestioning Free Palestine refrain that surrounds us all does not answer the simple question of why the hostages have still not all been returned? For what possible reason?

Why did Hamas choose the truly horrific acts of October 7th? The answer seems obvious, and I believe Hamas chooses too to hide behind the suffering of its people, in an equally cynical fashion for their own purposes.

He then turned his focus to “social media witch-hunts” saying that pressure on “artists and whoever they feel like that week to make statements etc do very little except heighten tension, fear and oversimplification of what are complex problems”.

He concluded his lengthy statement by saying: “I have written this in the simple hope that i can join with the many millions of others praying for this suffering, isolation and death to stop, praying that we can collectively regain our humanity and dignity and our ability to reach understanding ... that one day soon this darkness will have passed.”

As well as fronting Radiohead, Yorke has released a number of solo and group projects, including his recent trio featuring Greenwood and drummer Tom Skinner, the Smile.

Radiohead haven’t released an album since 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool, but the band members came together last summer to rehearse, ahead of an expected reunion.

Bassist Colin Greenwood, brother of Johnny, told NME: “We got together in the summer just for a couple of days and just ran through all the songs and picked up where we left off in 2018. It was really fun and nice to see everyone. We were going to do three or four days but knocked it on the head after two because it was fine and we could still do it. My brother said that we’d just need a couple of weeks’ rehearsal and we could go on the road, no problem.”