Charlotte Church says family threatened over Gaza support

Charlotte Church has said the police have had to check on her and her family after their safety was threatened by "some pretty scary people".

The singer added the problems followed a pro-Palestinian event she attended in Bedwas, Caerphilly county, last month.

The 38-year-old subsequently faced accusations of antisemitism.

She continues to strongly deny the accusations, saying she had "always kept great reverence for Judaism and Jewish culture".

In late February, at a Sing For Palestine event to raise money for a new ambulance for Gaza's Al Awda hospital, Church led a rendition of From The River To The Sea.

Critics say the chant calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, including the Campaign Against Antisemitism who say the chant is deeply offensive and threatening.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other activists contest this, saying the slogan refers to "the right of all Palestinians to freedom, equality and justice".

In a statement on her website, she said: "I have been called many things in my time, but not until this week have I received so much imaginative and violent hate - I've never before been called 'traitor'.

"The threats to me and my family's safety by some pretty scary people have resulted in the police coming round to check in on us."

Defending her performance, she said: "I do not believe that the phrase 'from the river to the sea' is in any way a call for the ethnic cleansing or genocide of Israelis.

"Certainly, when I have used it or heard it used by other people, it has always been as a call for the liberation of Palestine.

"Often it is accompanied by the phrase 'We are all Palestinians'."

Church added: "A call for one group's liberation does not imply another's destruction, and those suggesting that it does are leveraging a grotesque irony given it's that first group which is currently being murdered in their thousands."

She also stressed she does not support Hamas and condemns them for the attack on 7 October.

Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas have been at war since early October.

It began when Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza - the deadliest in Israel's history.

An Israeli military campaign has followed, which has killed thousands in the Palestinian territory.

"I hold the Jewish people in my life very dearly, and have always kept great reverence for Judaism and Jewish culture, since travelling around Israel and Palestine as a teenager," she said.

On Saturday, Church marched alongside tens of thousands of protesters in central London calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.