Radiohead singer Thom Yorke leaves the stage as a fan shouts “Protests in Gaza.”

Radiohead singer Thom Yorke briefly left the stage during his Australian solo tour after an exchange with an audience member who heckled him by protesting the deaths in Gaza.

Videos posted online by concertgoers at the Melbourne show on Wednesday show a man in the crowd shouting at Yorke. Although not all of his words can be heard, he calls on the singer to “condemn the Israeli genocide in Gaza.”

Yorke responds by telling the heckler to “jump on stage” to make his comments.

“Don’t look like a coward, come here and say it. Do you want to piss every night? OK, you do, see you later,” Yorke continues before picking up his guitar and pausing his set.

His exit came when the heckler repeated his call, adding: “How many dead children will it take.”

Parts of the crowd could be heard booing the commotion, and shortly after, Yorke returned to the cheers to play Radiohead Song Karma Police.

Concertgoer Elly Brus said the protester received “no support” from the Sidney Myer Music Bowl audience.

“He was taken away by security. He then continued to interact with people outside the venue,” she told the BBC.

In response to the group's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed approximately 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage, Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas.

More than 43,160 people have been killed in Gaza since then – including thousands of women and children, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Both sides deny the accusation of violating martial law.

In the past, Radiohead has been under pressure to cancel shows in Israel and engaging in a cultural boycott of the country over its policies toward the Palestinians.

Yorke pushed back against this pressure, saying that “playing in a country is not the same as supporting its government.”

“We have played in Israel for over 20 years, under various governments, some more liberal than others,” Yorke said in a statement in 2017, defending the decision to go ahead with a planned concert in Tel Aviv.

“We don’t support [Israeli Prime Minister] Neither does Netanyahu nor Trump, but we're still playing in America. “Music, art and science are about pushing boundaries, not building them,” he added at the time.

Earlier this year, pro-Palestinian activists also accused Yorke's bandmate Jonny Greenwood of “artwashing” for performing with Israeli-Arab musician Dudu Tassa in Tel Aviv.

“No art is as 'important' as stopping all the death and suffering around us,” Greenwood said in a statement on X.

“But… silencing Israeli artists because they were born Jews in Israel does not appear to be a way to reach understanding between the two sides of this seemingly endless conflict.”

The BBC has contacted representatives for Yorke's Australian tour. The Arts Center Melbourne, which oversees the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, declined to comment.