Protesters carrying Palestinian flags have disrupted a televised carol service by storming a stage and chanting “Free Palestine” into a host’s microphone. The Carols by Candlelight programme was being broadcast live on Channel 9 from the Sidney Myer Music Bowl In Melbourne, Australia, on Sunday (December 24) when the demonstrators burst in.
A woman screamed into a microphone “while you’re carolling kids are dying in Gaza” before she was dragged away along with other protesters.
Co-host David Campbell tried to calm the situation live on air, urging the audience and those on stage to “take it easy”, to “relax and settle down”, with children due to come on stage to perform.
He said: “Everyone is allowed to have their say, but we do have kids here. We just want to make sure those kids are safe. They will be back out here in a second.
“It is a very hard time in the world at the moment and there is a lot of pain out there.”
Footage of the protest was shared online, with some condemning the action. Israeli author Hen Mazzig tweeted: “This was at a Christmas Eve community fundraiser [in] Australia for blind children.
“It boggles the mind how so many co-opt Palestinian liberation to centre themselves and take away from other people in need. This behaviour will not ‘free Palestine’, it’s just shameful.”
The protest divided opinion, with some X users condemning the action while others voiced their support. One X user wrote on the platform: “Kids coming on stage about to perform was NOT the time for this.” A second called for them to be “locked up”.
Another commented: “I’m disgusted that they did that when the kids were about to perform. It affects their happy memory and would have been very scary.”
But a fourth X user said it was a “brilliant protest”, adding that the activists “have more courage than every one of their cowardly critics combined”.
Australia has long supported a two-state solution whereby Israel and a future Palestinian state can co‑exist in peace and security within internationally recognised borders.
The country says it is strongly opposed to the “unfair targeting” of Israel in the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, but makes clear its concerns about Israeli actions which undermine the prospects for a two-state solution.
Public opinion in Australia is divided over Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, with rallies and protests in support of both sides of the conflict having taken place in recent weeks.
Reports of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents have increased since the October 7 attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed. This week saw the death toll in Gaza top 20,000, according to the territory’s Hamas run health ministry.
