Did Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa withdraw from Eurovision over Gaza?
Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa has withdrawn from a role in the Eurovision Song Contest after Israel qualified.
The Rwandan-Scottish actor — now known to millions as the Fifteenth Doctor in Doctor Who — had been set to announce the UK’s jury points in Saturday’s grand final.
But on Thursday night, just minutes after Israel was confirmed as a finalist, the BBC released this curious statement:
“Due to unforeseen circumstances, unfortunately Ncuti Gatwa is no longer able to participate as Spokesperson during the Grand Final this weekend.”
No further explanation was given. No replacement statement from Gatwa himself. Just silence.
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Social media connected the dots after the BBC failed to
Almost immediately, observers online made the connection between Gatwa’s exit and Israel’s qualification — despite mounting calls for the country to be excluded over its brutal war on Gaza, where more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, including thousands of children.
To many anti-genocide campaigners, it looked like a protest that they could wholeheartedly support.
And pro-Israel accounts on the social media met it with predictable outrage. Some accused Gatwa of “politicising entertainment.” Others demanded the BBC reprimand or replace him permanently.
None of this has been confirmed.
Gatwa has not issued a public statement.
The BBC has kept quiet beyond its vague announcement.
But it is telling how quickly both sides assumed politics were involved — and how revealing that assumption is.
Eurovision is already political — just not evenly
The idea that Eurovision is “apolitical” is risible.
This is a show that regularly trades in national identity, political symbolism, and cultural diplomacy.
Russia was banned from Eurovision 2022 for its invasion of Ukraine — a move the BBC and other broadcasters loudly supported.
Yet Israel, accused by international law experts, human rights NGOs, and even the UN of perpetrating a genocide in Gaza, remains in the competition with no pushback from the organisers or major broadcasters.
Eurovision has become, like most global stages, a battlefield for public conscience.
This year, cities across Europe have seen protests demanding Israel’s exclusion.
Activists have called on artists to boycott.
In Sweden, stage invaders disrupted Israel’s semi-final performance.
The contest’s so-called “safe space for unity” has become a platform of glaring double standards.
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Whether Gatwa intended it or not, the message is loud and clear
Let’s be clear: we don’t know why Ncuti Gatwa pulled out.
It may have been political.
It may have been personal.
It may – as one online commenter suggested – have been a cold, “and the internet is now writing political statement fan-fiction”.
But what’s happened since is deeply revealing. A seemingly small personnel change — a spokesperson swap — has opened a Pandora’s box of questions the BBC and Eurovision authorities don’t want to answer:
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Why is Israel still in the contest while Gaza burns?
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Why is silence or neutrality from artists and broadcasters treated as complicity?
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And why are those who dare to even appear to challenge Israel met with coordinated backlash?
Gatwa’s quiet absence may be the loudest political statement of Eurovision 2025.
Whether or not he intended it, the public has read it that way — and that’s what matters.
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The stage is already political.
The BBC’s silence is political.
And the backlash to mere speculation shows just how desperate the establishment is to avoid the truth: support for Israel is no longer a neutral position — and neither is ignoring its crimes.
If Gatwa has withdrawn in protest, he has done something most celebrities fear to do: take a stand.
And if he just had a schedule clash or the flu?
Well, then the world really is writing protest fan-fiction because people are that desperate for someone — anyone — in the public eye to speak out.
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Is this article trying to dictate an opinion? firstly, Genocide? 99% of the Gaza population is alive. Simple maths show that 50,000 dead, half of which are Hamas, is 1% of the population. second: Children? is a 17 year old a child? what about when he’s holding an AK47? You don’t really know how many children were really killed. It’s a war Gaza started, and war is ugly, very. Is there such a thing as a nice war? Remember, Gaza can stop this anytime. They just need to release the hostages.
This comment reflects a dangerously misinformed and dehumanising perspective. Let’s break it down:
1. “It’s not genocide because only 1% of the population has died”?
That’s factually and morally wrong. Genocide is not defined by a percentage of the population killed. Under the UN Genocide Convention, genocide includes any acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group — including:
killing members of the group
causing serious bodily or mental harm
deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group
Even if “only” 1% of Gaza’s population has been killed (and that’s a grotesque way to frame mass death), this is still tens of thousands of people, including at least 14,000 children, according to reputable sources like the Gaza Health Ministry, which the UN and other international organisations use as their basis.
Historic genocides — including those in Bosnia and Rwanda — involved death tolls that represented smaller or similarly small fractions of the total population, but were still legally defined as genocides because of the intent and systematic nature of the violence.
2. “Half the dead are Hamas fighters” — according to whom?
This is an unsubstantiated claim. Israel itself has failed to provide credible breakdowns to support this figure, and independent observers — including UN agencies and human rights groups — have repeatedly emphasised that the majority of the dead are civilians. This includes women, children, elderly people, journalists, and aid workers. The bombing of hospitals, schools, refugee camps and safe zones cannot be justified under international law.
If you accept that even 14,000 children have been killed (and no serious authority denies this), how can that be anything but a war crime?
3. “Children with AK47s” — a classic dehumanisation tactic
The idea that a 17-year-old Palestinian is automatically a “combatant” if he’s male or could be armed is exactly how state violence justifies indiscriminate killing. Children are children under international law — under 18 — regardless of what they’re holding, and using that as a pretext for their deaths is deeply unethical.
4. “Gaza started the war” — a false framing
The blockade and occupation of Gaza have been ongoing for 17 years. Israel controls Gaza’s airspace, borders, and sea. Occupation is a form of structural violence that predates October 7, 2023, and is widely recognised as illegal under international law. That does not excuse Hamas’ atrocities, but collective punishment of a civilian population is also a war crime.
5. “Gaza can stop the war anytime by releasing hostages” — moral blackmail
Demanding that 2.3 million people — half of them children — be bombed and starved until a separate armed group releases hostages is collective punishment, prohibited under the Geneva Conventions. Civilians are not bargaining chips. This kind of rhetoric implies that Palestinian lives are conditional on Israeli terms, which is an utterly unacceptable framework for any just or moral peace.
Benny boy does prove the old adage about the difference between a tragedy and a statistic being dimension. It might be Dead Internet; it might be some odd Von Clauswitzean disassociation about people dying; it might be that he just gets off on it. The three look dangerously similar.
You’re absolutely right to call out the chilling way some people reduce mass death to ‘just numbers’—especially when the victims are Palestinian. Whether it’s willful ignorance, ideological conditioning, or dehumanisation disguised as ‘analysis’, the effect is the same: moral detachment from atrocity. When people dismiss official death tolls not because they’re proven wrong but because they come from the ‘wrong side’, it reveals more about their worldview than the data
Good piece.
the death toll in gaza is reported by the authorities in Gaza. there is no independent reporting. and the authorities in Gaza are Hamas and not at all credible – as proven time after time. anyone who believes in palestinian independence should know that hamas is not a political organization but a religious one. it does not share the same visin as the PLO but the same vision with ISIS and the palestinian people concept has absolutely no meaning for them. they do not recognize national identity.
i agree with the criticism of lack of vision on the side of israel and the fact that the war should stop in its current format. but a complex situation needs a complex approach and not the black and white attitude that the european pro palestinians have adopted and certainly not the antisemitic concepts that have been funded by Qattar and the likes
Dismissing Palestinian deaths because Hamas governs Gaza is both factually wrong and morally indefensible
This comment reflects a dangerously common tactic: discredit all Palestinian suffering by attacking the credibility of their governing authority. Let’s break down the key falsehoods and manipulations:
1. “The Gaza death toll is reported by Hamas and therefore not credible” — false.
The Gaza Health Ministry reports the death toll. Yes, it operates under the de facto government in Gaza, but its data has long been regarded as credible by the UN, WHO, Human Rights Watch, and the Israeli government itself — including during past conflicts.
When US President Biden cast doubt on the figures in October 2023, the Health Ministry responded by releasing the full list of names, ages, and ID numbers of the deceased — something no “terrorist propaganda outlet” would do.
More importantly: No one credible has disproven their figures. And Israel, despite having the most advanced surveillance in the world, hasn’t even attempted to produce an alternative death count.
So the “no independent reporting” claim falls apart when:
International journalists have been present (until Israel targeted media offices and killed at least 100 journalists),
NGOs corroborate the scale of devastation,
And the UN continues to use these figures in official statements.
2. “Hamas is not a political organisation but a religious one” — false dichotomy.
This is a rhetorical trick. Hamas is both a political and militant organisation. It won elections in 2006, governs Gaza (whether one likes it or not), and maintains civilian ministries, including health and education.
Its ideology is Islamist and deeply problematic. But that doesn’t erase:
Its role as the governing authority in Gaza (in the absence of any democratic alternatives, largely because Israel and the West isolated it),
Nor the basic right of Palestinian civilians to not be collectively punished for who governs them.
Criticising Hamas is one thing. Using that to delegitimise an entire people’s suffering is another.
3. “Hamas has no concept of Palestinian national identity” — irrelevant deflection.
Even if Hamas rejected national identity (which is debatable — its founding charter was Islamist, but later revisions acknowledged nationalist aims), that has zero bearing on whether 2.3 million Palestinians exist, suffer, and die under siege and bombardment.
The idea that Palestinian identity only matters if Hamas “respects it” is absurd — and erases the people who live, love, raise families, and die under occupation and war. It also whitewashes Israel’s role in deliberately weakening secular Palestinian leadership like the PLO in the past, to divide and rule.
4. “European pro-Palestinians adopt a black-and-white attitude” — a false projection.
What’s actually “black-and-white” is the idea that:
All statistics from Gaza are lies,
All criticism of Israel is antisemitic,
And all Palestinian resistance is equivalent to ISIS.
That’s the simplistic narrative — not the demand for a ceasefire, human rights, and accountability for mass civilian death.
You can absolutely:
Support Palestinian rights,
Condemn Hamas’ actions,
And oppose Israeli apartheid and war crimes.
That’s not black-and-white. That’s moral clarity.
5. “Antisemitic concepts funded by Qatar” — tired, conspiratorial deflection.
Equating solidarity with Palestinians with antisemitism is not just intellectually lazy — it’s harmful. It silences Jewish voices who oppose Israeli policies, it conflates a state with a religion, and it erases the massive global Jewish opposition to genocide.
As for Qatar: yes, they’ve funded Hamas. But so has Israel in the past, directly or indirectly, when it suited its interests. Let’s not pretend geopolitics is clean on either side.
Final thought:
This is a complex situation. But it’s not so complex that we can’t agree on basics:
Killing thousands of civilians is wrong.
Collective punishment is illegal.
Dismissing all Palestinian deaths as “Hamas lies” is morally bankrupt.
And using complexity to justify inaction is a cop-out.
Silencing or discrediting every Palestinian voice under the excuse of “Hamas” is how genocide gets rationalised.
Mike Sivier:Your use of ChatGPT to impress won’t help against the hypocrisy reflected in your character. Maybe try coming to Israel and talking to people who lived in the south, in the Gaza envelope.One thing is certain…They have more brains and emotional depth than you and ChatGPT combined.”
Mike Sivier:Your use of ChatGPT to impress won’t help against the hypocrisy reflected in your character. Maybe try coming to Israel and talking to people who lived in the south, in the Gaza envelope.One thing is certain…They have more brains and emotional depth than you and ChatGPT combined.”
You haven’t responded to a single one of the five points raised. Instead, you’ve resorted to personal insults and emotional appeals, which might feel satisfying but don’t make your position stronger.
Nobody denies that Israelis—especially those living near Gaza—have suffered and continue to carry trauma. But pointing that out doesn’t erase or excuse the scale of suffering inflicted on Palestinian civilians, including tens of thousands of deaths, many of them children.
Accusing someone of hypocrisy while ignoring mass civilian casualties isn’t moral clarity—it’s moral evasion. If you want to have a serious conversation, address the facts, not the messenger.