Bruno Mars Cancels Tel Aviv Concert Amid Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

7 October, 2023

Bruno Mars‘ concert in Tel Aviv on Saturday (Oct. 7) has been canceled following a deadly attack by Palestinian militants.

Mars, who performed his first concert in Israel on Wednesday (Oct. 4) at Tel Aviv’s Park HaYarkon, was scheduled to return to the venue on Saturday. The show was put on halt after Hamas launched a surprise assault earlier in the day, firing thousands of rockets and sending fighters into Israeli towns, killing dozens and wounding nearly 800 people, according to CNN.

“Bruno Mars concert scheduled to take place tonight is cancelled,” Live Nation Israel wrote Saturday on Instagram. “All ticket purchases to the show will receive an automatic refund to the credit card through which the purchase was made. We stand with the residents of Israel, IDF fighters and the security forces in these difficult moments.”

After Saturday’s attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that his country is “at war” with Hamas and launched airstrikes in Gaza, the Associated Press reports.

“We are at war,” Netanyahu said in a televised address. “The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” he continued, noting that Israel would “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.”

The deadly assault arrived on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reported that at least 198 Palestinians were killed and 1,610 had been injured in air strikes on Saturday, according to CNN.

See Live Nation Israel’s statement on Instagram below.