{"id":229736,"date":"2025-10-21T16:37:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T16:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/229736\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T16:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T16:37:08","slug":"avenged-sevenfolds-m-shadows-defends-making-video-message-for-freed-israeli-hostages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/229736\/","title":{"rendered":"Avenged Sevenfold\u2019s M. Shadows defends making video message for freed Israeli hostages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Avenged Sevenfold<\/a> frontman M. Shadows has defended the recent video message he sent to two freed Israeli hostages<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Talking to Rolling Stone<\/a>, the heavy metal<\/a> singer says the message, which he recorded for Avenged fans Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal after they were released by Palestinian nationalist terrorist group Hamas earlier this month, was not a \u201cpolitical\u201d act but a \u201chuman\u201d one.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Shadows explains: \u201cIt\u2019s not something that I\u2019m going to worry about; I know that it\u2019s the right thing to do. I think you have to stick to your moral compass, but I\u2019ve definitely heard it from both sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, that video is just a human doing something for another human. It\u2019s not making a political stance. It\u2019s not sticking it in someone\u2019s eye. It really is about two human beings that have been through hell. And if we can\u2019t agree on that, it\u2019s really hard to agree on anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

He goes on to add, \u201cWe\u2019ve [Avenged] done things for a lot of different people across different cultures and different religions. And at the end of the day, if they\u2019re fans, we really want to reach out and we want to support them in some sort of way. And so it just seems unfair \u2013 [this idea that] \u2018if you\u2019re not on my side, then you\u2019re an enemy.\u2019 It\u2019s really kind of gross.\u201d<\/p>\n

David and Gilboa-Dalal, along with 249 other Israelis, were taken hostage when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. 1,200 died in the attacks and, although tensions between Israel and Palestine had been ongoing for decades, the conflict escalated further. Between October 2023 and September 2025, more than 64,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, according to The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The UN Human Rights Council described Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza post-October 2023 as genocide, though Israel has denied having genocidal intent. A ceasefire went into effect on October 10 this year, and all 20 remaining living Israeli hostages have been released by Hamas. However, a Gaza medical office claims that Israel has already violated the ceasefire agreement 47 times<\/a> and killed 38 Palestinians.<\/p>\n

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Gilboa-Dalal was 22 when kidnapped by Hamas and has said that Avenged\u2019s music helped him during his time in captivity. After his and David\u2019s release, Shadows said in his video message: \u201cSo excited to hear you are home. The things you guys have been through are unspeakable, terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The singer reveals to Rolling Stone that two \u201cfriends\u201d of Avenged died in Hamas\u2019 October 7 attacks. \u201cIt was two girls that we know \u2013 sweet, innocent people,\u201d he says. \u201cTerrible things happened to them and they didn\u2019t make it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he reiterates that his video to David and Gilboa-Dalal was not politically motivated.<\/p>\n

Shadows also expresses his \u201crespect\u201d for Disturbed<\/a> frontman David Draiman, who courted widespread controversy when he put photos of himself signing an Israeli Defence Force (IDF) artillery shell onto Instagram in June 2024.<\/p>\n

In July this year, at Ozzy Osbourne<\/a>\u2019s retirement concert Back To The Beginning<\/a>, fans booed Draiman, with multiple outlets connecting the reaction to his endorsement of the IDF; the singer responded by saying his detractors that day were \u201ca few Jew-hating morons\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, a planned Disturbed concert was cancelled<\/a> by the mayor of Vorst, Belgium, following threats of protest action outside the show.<\/p>\n

Shadows says of Draiman: \u201cI really respect David, not just for where he stands, but that he believes in something and he\u2019s full-force into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Avenged released their latest album, Life Is But A Dream\u2026, in 2023 and will embark on a South American tour in January<\/a>. The tour was originally scheduled to kick off this September but was delayed after Shadows suffered vocal issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Avenged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows has defended the recent video message he sent to two freed Israeli hostages.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-229736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}