Michael Douglas pays solidarity visit to southern Israel
FILE: Michael Douglas arrives at the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2019, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. Douglas on Sunday, June 2, 2024, paid a solidarity visit to an Israeli kibbutz that was hit hard in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that sparked Israel’s war against the Islamic militant group. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
JERUSALEM — Actor Michael Douglas on Sunday paid a solidarity visit to an Israeli kibbutz that was hit hard in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked Israel’s war against the Islamic militant group.
Douglas met with members of Kibbutz Be’eri and visited burnt-out homes destroyed in the Oct. 7 attack. Be’eri was among the hardest hit communities, with roughly 100 people killed and 30 others taken hostage.
Douglas said he met families of hostages and visited the scene of a music party where over 300 people were killed.
He also met with Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, who presented the actor with an Israeli dog tag necklace and small pin of a yellow ribbon — symbols of solidarity with the dozens of hostages who remain in Hamas captivity.
“It’s a very difficult time. You sense the deep shock of this whole experience,” Douglas said, expressing hope that the hostages would be released soon.
Article continues after this advertisementOn Instagram, he said that he was at the site of the Nova Festival Memorial, which now stood as a memorial for the massacre of some 300 people, and which he said “started this terrible war.”
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His post, however, garnered opposing views from those for the Israeli air strikes, and those who are pro-Palestine.
Douglas also lashed out at pro-Palestinian protesters on American campuses — claiming that many have been subject to “brainwashing.”
“When you try to talk to many of them, there is no education. There’s no knowledge,” he said.
Douglas is the latest in a line of American celebrities and politicians who have visited Israel and toured the southern area near the Gaza border since Oct. 7.
