Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot has spoken out about the ongoing conflict in her home country, Israel.
On Saturday, Palestinian movement Hamas launched a surprise series of coordinated attacks on Israel, firing rockets from the Gaza Strip as its fighters crossed over the border. Israel then carried out strikes on Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, declaring that Israel was now “at war.”
At least 493 Palestinians have been killed and 2,751 wounded since Israel launched its strikes on Gaza. The Israeli death toll stands at 700, with more than 1,000 wounded according to Reuters.
Gadot took to her Instagram to express her solidarity with Israel, where she served in the Israel Defense Forces under the country’s compulsory military service laws.
“At least 250 Israeli have been murdered and dozens of women children and elders held as hostages in Gaza, by Palestinian military group Hamas,” Gadot wrote on Sunday alongside a screenshot of a BBC story about the conflict. “Starting early morning more than 3,000 rockets were fired. Hamas is holding hostages, controlling bases and settlements in Israel. There have been more than 1,500 injured and heavy fighting is still ongoing.
“‘I hear their voices and they are banging on the door. I am with my two little children’. My heart is aching. Praying for all of those in pain.”
Newsweek contacted Gadot’s representatives by email for comment.
Later that day, Gadot posted a picture of the Star of David on a blue background with the words: “I stand with Israel.”
She captioned the post: “I stand with Israel you should too. The world cannot sit on the fence when these horrific acts of terror are happening!”
Gadot also shared a fundraiser for people in Israel and encouraged people to donate.
“Whoever can, and willing to donate, these peoples lives changed forever yesterday. They’ve lost so much and need help. Only if you can.. 🙏 link in bio,” she wrote.
The photo on that post featured the text: “Israel is under attack and we need your support!”
The actress also posted on her Instagram stories, including a video showing a city going about its normal routine with the text saying: “Imagine you wake up in the morning and you wake up to this,” and the video then cut to scenes of missiles landing on apartment buildings. Other scenes in the video showed Hamas entering Israel.
The voiceover in the video then explained what had happened on Saturday from an Israeli perspective.
“And no this is not a horror movie, this is the reality right now in Israel,” the voiceover said.
Another Instagram story was a news clip from CNN showing video of the Hamas operation in Israel.
Gadot was not the only high profile person to speak out about the conflict.
MSNBC reporter Ayman Mohyeldin appeared on the network to give his take.
“There’s a thread here that I think is very important for our viewers and that has to do with narrative. And the narrative is something that’s very important,” he said during a segment on the Velshi program.
“There was a removal of settlements. There wasn’t an ending of the occupation. There was a disengagement, there was a removal of the Israeli military inside gaza but as Palestinians described, you’re moving the prison guards from inside the prison [to] outside the walls. You haven’t given them their freedom.”
He added that while there was an “unilateral disengagement” early in the century between Palestinians in Gaza and Israel, “the absence of violence is not peace.”
“If you do not have some kind of mechanism that delivers justice for Palestinians, you’re never going to have peace in the region, that’s what this is about,” Mohyeldin said.
“Palestinians were not seeking land. Israel was seeking peace, but the Palestinians were seeking freedom. The very nature of the equation by which we have been looking at this conflict, then narrative of which we have been trying to understand what is happening has not been accurate so we are not able to accurately solve the problem. Because we don’t actually understand what the reality is on the ground.”
The reporter then said “most Americans do not understand” what it feels like to be “living under occupation” or to “be dispossessed of your land and self-determination.”
“The people who have been living in Gaza [have been] blockaded, besieged, decimated, economically, and politically have nothing to lose,” he added.
Another prominent Palestinian to share his thoughts was comedian Mohammed Amer, who starred in his own Netflix series, Mo, and was a series regular on Ramy.
Amer shared a statement from the Jewish Voice for Peace organization to his Instagram stories.
“The Root of Violence is Oppression. Inevitably, oppressed people everywhere will seek — and gain — their freedom. We all deserve liberation, safety, and equality. The only way to get there is by uprooting the sources of the violence, beginning with our own government’s complicity,” read JVP’s statement.