Short answer: There is no public record of Kate Winslet expressing support for Israel. Her one documented brush with the topic is narrating the 2022 documentary "Eleven Days in May," about Palestinian children killed in the May 2021 Gaza conflict, co-directed by a filmmaker with reported family ties to Hamas. Winslet has said she was not told about that connection and that her narration was not meant as a political stance on the conflict. She has not signed the 2025 "Film Workers for Palestine" pledge that thousands of other actors signed, and her one on-camera remark touching the subject, on Colbert in September 2024, was a general line about everyone having "a right for their story to be remembered in conflict" rather than a position on Israel. As of August 2026.
What Kate Winslet has actually said and done
- May 2021: The documentary Winslet later narrated, "Eleven Days in May," covers the May 2021 conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, centered on Palestinian children killed during the fighting, according to Wikipedia's entry on the film.
- May 6, 2022: "Eleven Days in May," co-directed by British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom and Gaza-based filmmaker Mohammed Sawwaf and narrated by Winslet, was released in the UK, per the same Wikipedia entry.
- May 12, 2022: Winslet told Jewish News she did not know of co-director Mohammed Sawwaf's reported family ties to Hamas when she agreed to narrate the film. "That my participation could be interpreted as taking a stand on the rights and wrongs of one of the world's most tragic and intractable conflicts never entered my thinking," she said, adding, "War is a tragedy for all sides. Children have no voice in conflict. I simply wanted to lend them mine." Her statement was reported by The Times of Israel and by The Algemeiner.
- Around the film's 2022 release: UNICEF, which the film's producers had cited as aligned with the project's humanitarian aims, publicly distanced itself from the documentary, saying it had no involvement in scripting or financing it, as reported by Jewish News and corroborated by The Algemeiner.
- September through October 2025: More than 4,000 film industry figures, later over 5,000, including A-list actors such as Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Olivia Colman, and Tilda Swinton, signed the "Film Workers for Palestine" pledge not to work with Israeli film institutions. Kate Winslet does not appear among the reported signatories, according to Variety.
- March 2026: Winslet was confirmed to join Andy Serkis's "The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum" as a female lead, shooting in New Zealand from late May 2026, with no Israel-related commentary attached to the announcement, per Deadline.
The context behind the one documentary credit
Kate Winslet, born October 5, 1975, is a British actress known for Titanic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and The Reader. She is not Jewish and has no documented Jewish ancestry; a genealogy investigation for the BBC series "Who Do You Think You Are?" traced her family to British, Irish, and Swedish roots.
Her only substantive connection to the Israel and Gaza subject is narrating "Eleven Days in May" on a volunteer basis, at the invitation of Michael Winterbottom, whom she had worked with before. She has said she believed the project aligned with UNICEF and Oxfam's humanitarian goals. The film's co-director, Gaza-based filmmaker Mohammed Sawwaf, runs a production company that critics have described as producing "pro-resistance" content, and his family ties to Hamas figures drew scrutiny from Jewish and pro-Israel outlets. Winslet's own public comments were a defense of her humanitarian framing, not a statement on the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and she never used the word "misled" herself; that framing came from headlines characterizing her remarks, not from her own words.
Beyond that 2021 to 2022 episode, there is no evidence in the public record of Winslet making statements about Israel, visiting Israel, donating to Israeli or Jewish causes, appearing at pro-Israel events, or joining the 2025 industry boycott pledge against Israeli film institutions that thousands of her peers signed. She also does not appear among the high-profile signatories of the October 2023 celebrity letter to President Biden calling for a Gaza ceasefire, a letter fronted by figures such as Cate Blanchett, Andrew Garfield, and Oscar Isaac. Her overall record on Israel is thin and largely incidental, centered on one contested documentary credit rather than any sustained public position for or against Israel.
The bottom line
Kate Winslet has not expressed support for Israel. The only documented data point ties her, indirectly and contestedly, to the other side of the conversation: narrating a 2022 documentary about Gaza made with a filmmaker later reported to have Hamas family ties, which she says she agreed to for humanitarian reasons rather than political ones, without knowing that background. She has not joined the 2025 industry boycott of Israeli film institutions that many peers signed, and she has made no statement on October 7 or the Israel-Hamas war. She has no Jewish heritage. On the record, she is neither a supporter of Israel nor a vocal critic; she is largely absent from the subject apart from the one contested 2022 credit.
Wear your own answer
Whatever any given celebrity has or hasn't said, plenty of people want their support for Israel to be unmistakable. The I Stand With Israel collection, including the I Stand With Israel bracelet, is a simple, wearable way to make that stance clear without waiting on anyone else's statement.
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
