Guy Pearce, Annie Lennox and Vanessa Redgrave are among the celebrities calling for an end to the “normalised horror” of children being killed in Gaza, as part of a new short film released by Save the Children and Choose Love.
The film features the stars reciting Michael Rosen’s 2014 poem Don’t Mention the Children, written in response to a Guardian article about the Israeli government banning a radio advert naming children killed in Gaza. The poem begins: “Don’t mention the children. / Don’t name the dead children. / The people must not know the names / of the dead children.”
“The first time I read Michael Rosen’s poem, not only was I profoundly moved, I was also in shock,” Pearce told the Guardian. “Rosen’s brutal commands stare directly into our soul and force us to confront the cruelty of erasing a child, erasing their name, their memory and their life.”
Others featured include actors Ambika Mod, Joely Richardson, Juliet Stevenson, Denise Gough, Khalid Abdalla, Zawe Ashton and Indira Varma; presenters Laura Whitmore and Nadia Sawalha; model Poppy Delevingne; emergency doctor Dr Mo Mustafa; activist Stephen Kapos; and the poem’s creator, Michael Rosen.
The project is paired with renewed calls by Save the Children and Choose Love for the UK government to “end its complicity in the horrors unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank”. They are urging the public to sign a petition demanding an immediate suspension of all arms transfers to Israel, accountability for perpetrators, and decisive action to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
At least 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to Gaza health authorities, though independent surveys suggest the figure is far higher. Save the Children said it has been unable to get any of its own aid into Gaza since 2 March. Rosen said: “I wrote Don’t Mention the Children 11 years ago… It is heartbreaking that the poem is still so relevant today – in fact, the situation for children has only grown worse.”
