Comedian Pete Davidson opened Saturday Night Live with a moving monologue about the violence in Israel and Gaza and how the bloodshed brought back the pain of losing his firefighter father in the September 11 terror attacks.
“This week we’ve seen terrible images and stories from Israel and Gaza and I know what you’re thinking: ‘who better to comment on that than Pete Davidson?'” he told the crowd on Saturday.
“Well, in many ways I’m a good person to talk about it because when I was seven years old, my father was killed in a terrorist attack. So I know something about what that’s like,” he explained.
“I’ve seen so many horrible pictures this week of suffering children, Israeli children and Palestinian children, and it took me back to a really horrible, horrible place, and no one in this world deserves to suffer like that, especially children.”
It comes as more than 1,300 people were killed in Israel after Hamas launched a series of terror attacks, and more than 2,200 people were killed during Israel’s retaliatory bombing of the Gaza Strip.
Comedian Pete Davidson opened Saturday Night Live with a moving monologue about the violence in Israel and Gaza
Davidson said the bloodshed brought back the pain of losing his father, a firefighter in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
“No one in this world deserves to suffer like this, especially children,” the comedian said
Davidson’s father, Scott Davidson, died on September 11, 2001 when Davidson was just seven years old.
The star previously opened up about the news of his father’s death.
“One night I turned on the TV and I just saw my dad on the TV,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ And they said, these are all the firefighters that are dead,” he told the Real Ones podcast earlier this year.
“After my father died, my mother tried pretty much everything she could do to cheer me up,” Davidson continued in his SNL monologue.
“I remember one day when I was eight, she gave me a Disney movie that she thought was a Disney movie, but it was actually Eddie Murphy’s stand-up special, crazy.
Davidson said this was a catalytic moment that allowed him to begin processing his grief.
‘I do not understand. “I really don’t, and I never will, but sometimes comedy really is the only way forward,” he said.
Adding: “My heart is with everyone whose lives have been destroyed this week. But tonight I’m going to do what I’ve always done in the face of tragedy, and that’s try to be funny. Don’t forget I said try it.’
Injured children wait for medical treatment after being taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza
Troops remove the bodies of victims killed during an attack by Hamas terrorists in Kfar Aza on Tuesday
A fireball erupts on Saturday during the Israeli bombardment of the northern Gaza Strip
‘Merkava’ battle tanks are gathering today at a staging area at an undisclosed location along the Gaza border
The USS Gerald R. Ford is the world’s largest aircraft carrier. It is now located off the coast of Israel
It comes as Israel expects a ground assault on Gaza following this week’s deadly Hamas terror attacks. On Saturday evening, the New York Times reported that the invasion had been postponed due to bad weather and was likely to happen in the coming days as the IDF prepared for up to 18 months of conflict.
Since the Hamas incursion, the bloodiest day in Israel’s 75-year history, the Israeli army says it has mobilized 360,000 reservists.
On Saturday, two US sources told CNN that a second strike group is moving to the region, after the first – led by the USS Gerald R. Ford – arrived off the coast of Israel earlier this week.
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower strike group will join the Ford after changing its plans to deploy to the U.S. European Command and instead deploying to the Middle East, leaving its base in Norfolk, Virginia, on Friday .
The US warships are not intended to take part in the fighting in Gaza or in Israeli operations, Pentagon officials emphasize.
But the presence of two of the Navy’s most powerful ships is intended to send a message of deterrence to Iran and Iranian allies in the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
A photo taken from Sderot shows plumes of smoke rising over buildings during an Israeli attack on the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, as Israel shells Gaza in preparation for a land invasion
Israel has ordered the evacuation of 1.1 million people from northern Gaza so they can move south.
Martin Griffiths, the United Nations’ humanitarian chief, said he fears “the worst is yet to come”, warning that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is “fast becoming untenable”.
The statement added that “the past week has been a test for humanity, and humanity is failing.”
The World Health Organization called Israel’s evacuation orders to hospitals in northern Gaza “a death sentence for the sick and injured.”
Daniel Hagari, Israel’s military spokesman, told the country that “challenging weeks” would follow as the military operation escalated.
The goal, he said, was “the defeat of Hamas and the elimination of its leaders.”
