Radiohead singer Thom Yorke left the stage during a concert Wednesday after a member of the audience shouted about Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.
Yorke was playing a show in Melbourne, Australia, as part of a solo tour when, according to multiple videos recorded by concertgoers, a man yelled: "Do you condemn the Israeli genocide of Gaza? Already 200,000 [dead], half of them children."
Onstage, Yorke replied: "Come up here and say that."
Yorke continued, amid some cheering: "Don’t stand there like a coward; come here and say it.
“You want to piss on everybody’s night? OK, you do it, see you later," he said before he walked off stage.
He returned a short time later and performed a version of the classic Radiohead song "Karma Police."
The Health Ministry in Gaza said Wednesday that more than 43,000 people have been killed since Israel launched its assault last year in the wake of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, which Israeli officials say killed 1,200 people.
Yorke, 56, is on a solo tour while Radiohead is on a lengthy hiatus. He has released three solo albums and also plays with The Smile, a prog-rock project featuring Radiohead member and feted movie composer Jonny Greenwood, which released its critically acclaimed third album, "Cutouts," this year.
Radiohead has faced criticism in the past for playing gigs in Israel and not joining a boycott of the country by some artists.
"We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America. Music, art and academia is about crossing borders not building them," Yorke said in a statement in 2017 before a show in Tel Aviv.
