Israel critic Dua Lipa makes her assist for Gaza clear at Glastonbury

Dua Lipa made her support for Gaza clear as she headlined Glastonbury last night by singing alongside a collection of Palestine flags in the crowd, to get them in camera shot. 

Footage from her stunning performance yesterday showed her running out into the crowd to sing closer to a flag that read ‘Glasto for Palestine’, which social media users are claiming is a nod to her continuing support of the issue.

The Grammy award-winner has been one of the longstanding celebrities who have urged world leaders to help deescalate the crisis in Gaza and Israel.

Just last month the 28-year-old posted to her 88 million Instagram followers: ‘Burning children alive can never be justified. The whole world is mobilising to stop the Israeli genocide. Please show your solidarity with Gaza.’

The English-Albanian singer went through a medley of hits and performed several acrobatic dance routines in a leather studded bodysuit as she was cheered on by thousands at Worthy Farm.

Viewers were captivated by Dua’s two-hour performance which did include live vocals in many of the songs. 

They wrote: ‘Dua Lipa is actually too good. God I wish I was there.’ 

‘Smashed it dua lipa’ and ‘Dua Lipa’s been pretty good actually. I only know One Kiss, but her voice is better than I’d thought it would be. Look forward to seeing her in the Sunday afternoon legend slot in about 25 years time’. 

‘This Dua Lipa and Kevin Parker collab is magical’ and ‘smashed it Dua Lipa’. 

However some supporters wondered whether she was miming in her performance, as her lips appeared to be out of sync with the music at times during the show.

Those watching the set described the possibility of the One Kiss hitmaker not singing live as ‘terrible’.

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, one wrote: ‘It’s a shame #DuaLipa can’t sing live. Don’t turn up to glasto and mime. Rubbish.’ 

Earlier in the day, Dua was pictured enjoying a low-key pub lunch with her family as she prepared to take to the stage for her headline show at the Glastonbury Festival on Friday.

Ahead of her show, Dua was spotted sitting down for lunch at THE PIG pub in Bath, with her mother Anesa, father Dukagjin, and her boyfriend Callum Turner.

Dua said she has dreamed about headlining Glastonbury Festival ‘my whole life’ as she kicked off the Pyramid stage slot.

The pop superstar opened her first headline performance at the British festival with impressive choreography to her hit track Training Season from her third studio album, Radical Optimism, which released earlier this year.

She told the crowd: ‘I can’t believe this, I’ve dreamed about this my whole life.

‘And I can’t believe I’m right up here, right here, with you guys, I am so happy to be here with you guys tonight.’

During her performance, the audience could be heard singing loudly along to the words of her 2018 track One Kiss with Calvin Harris.

Meanwhile, during her 2020 hit track Levitating, the singer asked the crowd if they were ready ‘to go to the moon’.

Dua, who took home the Brit Award for best pop act in March, treated revellers to a selection of her hit songs, including Illusion and Break My Heart.

It comes after Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis said the pop star was ‘born’ to headline the festival.

She told BBC Radio 2’s The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show there will be ‘no big surprises’ at this year’s event, but she did say Coldplay’s Saturday headline slot will be a ‘huge moment’.

American R&B singer SZA will headline on Sunday, while country star Shania Twain will play the coveted Legends slot.

Earlier, Emily defended the festival line-up amid criticism that there is a lack of rock bands, saying: ‘I think the line-up reflects what’s happening in the music world at the moment – there aren’t a lot of new rock acts to choose from, if I’m honest.

‘Hopefully that will emerge again, my heyday was 1995 with Pulp and Oasis and Radiohead… and that was great, but music changes all the time and right now this is where we’re at.

‘Every year, we’ve been criticised for being too rock, too grime, too hip hop, too pop… it’s just part of our year.

‘Generally it’s not from the public… everybody’s really happy and excited to be here.’

This year’s festival is taking place in the week before the General Election, and Emily said: ‘I feel a bit like we’ve stepped out of the election, even though it’s next week.

‘We were working on having voter registration booths, but then the day moved.

‘It’s a big one for us, we’ve never had a pre-election festival.’

Glastonbury organisers have also decided the Euro 2024 football tournament will not be broadcast at the festival – with England set to face Slovakia in the last 16 at 5pm on Sunday.

Emily said the festival set up a screen to watch fixtures during the World Cup in 1998, but times have changed.

‘We used to have a screen here as no-one had any means of finding out what even the result was because we were so cut off from the outside,’ she said.

‘Now everyone’s connected, and I think, you know, it’s a music festival.

‘I’m sure if people want to see it enough they can check for results or whatever on their phones.

‘But hopefully I’m encouraging people to put their phones away and forget about the outside world.’