US-rapper Macklemore has been dropped from opening Ed Sheeran’s tour following the backlash over his calls for a Free Palestine during a concert at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium last week.

Rolling Stone magazine reports that a number of venues refused to allow the concert to go ahead with Macklemore as part of the performance.

Macklemore shared on social media that after difficult conversations with his long-time friend Sheeran, whose “typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it never had been before”, he said the real victims from this fallout are the Palestinian people.

The Israeli-American Council launched a petition to drop him from remaining tour dates shortly after Macklemore told the crowd, “the people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank, know that we have not forgotten about them. I say free Palestine”.

A supertanker caught fire after striking naval mines while attempting to pass through a restricted zone south of the Strait of Hormuz, the IRGC said in a statement carried by the semi-official Fars news agency.

The IRGC navy identified the vessel as the “Algaya” and said efforts to contain the blaze had failed, with the entire ship now engulfed in flames.

It said warnings had been issued about the danger of using the route and reiterated that the Strait of Hormuz remained under its surveillance and control.