Israeli actress Gal Gadot’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony on Tuesday was disrupted by demonstrators from both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel groups, the US media reported on Wednesday.
According to a report by American media house Variety, nearly two dozen protesters gathered from each side, delaying the ceremony by 15 minutes and inciting police response.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators, gathered on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, held signs that read “Heroes Fight Like Palestinians,” “Viva Viva Palestina,” and “No Other Land Won Oscar”, referring to the Academy Award-winning documentary on Israeli incursions into Palestinian territory in the West Bank.
A video posted on X by a Variety reporter shows protesters chanting “shame on Gal Gadot”. Another video showed multiple protesters handcuffed by police. The crowd also shouted slogans like “Up up with liberation, down down with occupation” and “not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel’s crime”.
The protest followed Israel’s resumption of bombing in Gaza in the early hours of Tuesday after a nearly two-month long ceasefire.
Gadot, who plays the Evil Queen in Disney’s upcoming Snow White live-action film alongside Rachel Zegler, previously served in the Israeli military and has been outspoken in her support for Israel since the October 7 Hamas-led attack on the country and the subsequent Gaza invasion. The 39-year-old actress has shared her stance on social media and addressed the issue in a speech at the Anti-Defamation League’s annual summit on March 4.
“Never did I imagine that we would witness such a day of such death and destruction of Jews in our lifetime, and never did I imagine that on the streets of the United States, and different cities around the world, we would see people not condemning Hamas, but celebrating, justifying, and cheering on a massacre of Jews. My name is Gal, and I'm Jewish, and we have had enough of Jew hatred. We will confront anti-Semitism, we will call it out,” she said.
During Tuesday’s ceremony, however, Gadot avoided the topic, instead expressing gratitude to Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins. In her speech, she referred to herself as “just a girl from a town in Israel”.
Gadot is not the only Hollywood celebrity to face controversy over her stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Last month, pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the Hollywood premiere of Captain America: Brave New World, calling for a boycott due to the inclusion of Israeli superhero Ruth Bat-Seraph, aka Sabra, played by Israeli actor Shira Haas.
Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp also faced backlash online after posing with stickers that read “Zionism is sexy” and “Hamas is ISIS”.