LONDON: Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola delivered a speech in support of Palestinian children at a charity concert in Barcelona, calling for greater action to protect them.

The star manager, 55, wore a keffiyeh and spoke passionately about his pain at seeing the suffering of Palestinian children, Sky News reported.

“Good evening, salam alaikum, how wonderful,” he told the crowd. “When I see a child in these past two years with these images on social media, on television, recording himself pleading ‘where is my mother?’ among the rubble and he still doesn’t know it.

“And I always think, ‘What must they be thinking?’ And I think we’ve left them alone, abandoned.” He added: “I always imagine them saying, ‘Where are you? Come help us.’”

Guardiola said “even now, we haven’t done it,” because perhaps “those in power are cowards,” adding: “They basically send innocent young people to kill innocent people.”

He demanded a “step forward” as part of what he described as a “statement for Palestine and … a statement for humanity.”