Bob Geldof explodes at Sky News' Trevor Phillips as Palestine row erupts

Sky News turned tense as presenter Sir Trevor Phillips spoke to Boomtown Rats legend and Live Aid organiser Bob Geldof on air.This week, David Mencer claimed that Hamas "starves its own people" while talking to Mark Austin on The News Hour, as he died that Israel was responsible for mass hunger in Gaza.

Sir Trevor said to Geldof: "The Israeli view is that there is no famine caused by Israel, there's a manmade shortage, but it's been engineered by Hamas. I guess the Israelis would say we don't see much criticism from your side of Hamas."

The singer replied: "They're lying. [Benjamin] Netanyahu lies, is a liar. The IDF are lying. They're dangling food in front of starving, panicked, exhausted mothers. And while they arrive to accept the tiny amount of food that this sort of set up pantomime outfit, the Gaza Humanitarian Front, I would call it, as they dangle it, then they're shot wantonly.

"This month, up to now, 1,000 children or 1,000 people have died of starvation. I'm really not interested in what either of these sides are saying.

"If the newsfeeds and social feeds weren't so censored in Israel, I imagine that the Israeli people would not permit what has been done in their name."

Sir Trevor argued: "I think what the issue here is we can see demonstrations weekly by Israelis against their own government, isn't it a bit unfair to say this is the Israelis as a whole?

Geldof erupted: "No! No it isn't! Stop it Trevor. What's unfair is what is happening to these babies. What's unfair is that image that you showed us, that's unfair. I've been in Gaza, I've been in the West Bank, I've been in Israel many times.

"What's unfair is that one hour from the hunger, people are sitting down to their unthreatened dinners to turn on their next Netflix soap. One hour.

"So if Israelis want to protest, get in your cars, this is very Bob stuff, I know, get in your cars, stuff your cars full of food and drive through that border and let your own army stop you. You guys stop it, shame on you."

The I Don't Like Mondays legend then hit out at the UK government's reaction to the conflict, saying "it's not enough".

He slammed Sir Keir Starmer's pledge to recognise Palestine as a state as he said: "This is a distraction thing about 'let's recognise the state' - absolutely, it should have been done ages ago, but it's not going to make any material difference."