All of Sheeran's support acts - including his backing band - have quit the current Loop tour after the US rapper Macklemore was dropped following comments he made in support of Palestine during a show in New Jersey.
Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft barred the rapper from performing at the Massachusetts venue later this month, saying he would not "provide a platform for hate speech".
And following the decision of the support acts to pull out of the tour, Sheeran was forced to play a solo set at the Lincoln Financial Field Stadium in Philadelphia on Saturday, beginning the concert by addressing the week's events.
He said: "I've had to take, and make, difficult decisions, and I am making mistakes and I'm so, so sorry for them.
"I don't want to disappoint fans, and I've never wanted to be an activist musician, but this has put me in the middle of an important and passionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet."
Sheeran insisted that he has tried to avoid becoming a "political commentator" during his career, and that he wants his music to be "about unity, not division".
He added: "This is a humanitarian issue, and I cannot hide how I feel about it anymore.
"What happened in Israel and at the Nova music festival on October 7 was horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain.
"What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate. My heart has been broken by the scale of devastation and loss of civilians' lives, children's lives."
Sheeran went on to thank fans for coming to the show, adding: "I am honestly so grateful that you're here tonight with me.
"This concert is still a place where everyone is welcome and everyone here can stand beside people that have opposing views, and everyone can stand beside people that they don't agree with on everything, but they can all agree on singing these songs."
Becoming emotional at the end of the gig, Sheeran reflected on feeling "abandoned" in the wake of the controversy.
The singer told the crowd he felt "so much love" from the audience, adding: "Everyone is telling me to cancel, and I'm feeling all of my friends and family and people I know abandon me, and I look at the end of the week, and I see 50,000 people who haven't abandoned.
"The world is a scary place right now. America is a scary place right now. This gives hope."
Pro-Palestine protest near stadium
A small but vocal pro-Palestine demonstration was held several hundred metres from the venue, near the train station that serves the Lincoln Financial Field Stadium.
One woman told the Associated Press she was attending the protest after receiving a refund for her tickets to the concert.
Hillary Steinberg said: "I think all art is political, and all music is political, and so this choice - even though he was saying that he wasn't complicit - is a political choice."
Sheeran's ongoing tour began in Auckland, New Zealand, in January.
It will finish in Mexico City in December, with 16 other shows still scheduled across North and South America.
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The other acts who dropped out include Irish singer Aaron Rowe, Grammy Award-winning musician Finneas, who is Billie Eilish's brother, and Danish singer Lukas Graham.
The start time for Saturday's show was pushed back from 5.30pm local time to 8pm and a small pro-Palestine protest was also held outside the subway station closest to the stadium.
The earl has made a series of damning claims about the King in a new memoir - alleging he said "we'll forget her soon enough" during a supposed row over funeral arrangements for his sister Princess Diana.
Buckingham Palace afterwards said in a statement that "fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise".
However, the earl has stood by his comments in multiple interviews - where he's also likened the media's treatment of Prince Harry and Meghan to what his late sister went through.
He told The Mail on Sunday: "It is not every day you wake up to find you've been gaslit by the King.
"It was astonishingly provocative and below the belt because it was essentially trying to say I'd lied without the King being able to deny what I'd said.
"I also thought it was a rather poor imitation of the 'recollections may vary' quote, which was a much more elegant way of putting things, but in these circumstances entirely out of place."
He also said that "Diana would be cheering from the rafters at this book".
The earl made the allegations in Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail and is due to be published next week.
Earl likens Sussexes' 'unpleasant' treatment to Diana
In another interview released on Sunday, the earl was asked if he thought Diana would "identify" with how her youngest son Harry and his wife, Meghan, have been treated by the media.
"If you look at an article in a tabloid about Diana or the couple that you were mentioning, Harry and Meghan, you know, they can be really, really unpleasant," he told the BBC.
"And I think it would be really beholden on people to learn from Diana's example."
The earl added: "I'm not here to speak for Harry and Meghan, but for anyone who's being destroyed in this way daily, it must be such a cancerous influence in their life."
The Duke of Sussex has been highly critical of the media scrutiny he and Meghan have faced, and blamed a tabloid newspaper for a miscarriage his wife suffered in 2020.
In a separate BBC interview earlier this week, the earl insisted he is "telling the truth" about Charles.
He said: "I told friends and family straight away, close friends and family, about what had been said, because it was so monstrous."
The King allegedly made the remarks about forgetting Diana during an argument over whether the then Prince William and Prince Harry should follow the princess's funeral cortege.
Earl Spencer walked behind Diana's coffin during the funeral procession in 1997 alongside Harry, William, then-Prince Charles, and the late Duke of Edinburgh.
In the latest extract of the book serialised in the Daily Mail, he described the train journey from London to Althorp after the funeral.
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The earl wrote: "My chief memory of that train journey is of being concerned at the lack of obvious care for Harry, as he decompressed from the ghastliness of the morning.
"He needed Diana's hugs, of course, and they would forever be denied him.
"But instead of calm and nurture, he was allowed to spin out of control."
Despite the string of damning claims, the Royal Family have been carrying on with business as usual.
On Saturday, the Queen was welcomed with applause to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire for the first day of the festival for The Queen's Reading Room, a charity she founded following the success of her Instagram book club during the pandemic.
Camilla spoke of her love for books that have a "life-enhancing power" and said being at Chatsworth House, which has a library of over 17,000 books, was "like coming home".
A murder investigation is under way after Reece Salmon was found with stab wounds in a residential street in Clerkenwell late on Wednesday evening, according to the Metropolitan Police.
He was taken to hospital where he died the next day.
Police had been called to Lloyd Baker Street around 11.20pm on Wednesday following reports of a stabbing.
Officers went to the scene, along with members of the London Ambulance Service, where Mr Salmon was discovered injured.
In a statement, his family said: "We are utterly devastated by this loss.
"Reece was a loving partner and son, and he leaves behind many friends and loved ones. It is impossible to put our loss into words."
Chief Superintendent Jason Stewart, who leads policing in the local area, said: "This is a tragic incident, and our thoughts remain with the family and friends of the young man who has lost his life.
"You can expect to see additional officers in the area providing visible reassurance and working with partners to keep the public safe.
"The victim was found in a residential street, and members of the public may have information of vital importance to our investigation. If you can help, please come forward."
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Following the suspected murder, a section 60 order was authorised for the Caledonian Road, Clerkenwell and Hoxton areas, giving officers more powers to stop and search people and vehicles from 4pm on Friday to 6am on Saturday.
No arrests have yet been made.
Violence broke out among demonstrators gathered at the Malieveld park in the city centre on Saturday, leading the Hague municipality to ban the march.
Justice minister David van Weel said the protesters made Nazi salutes, chanted antisemitic slogans, attacked police and threw fireworks at riot officers.
He posted on X: "It is important that hardline action is taken against this. Thanks to all the police officers who once again stand up for our rule of law."
Police made several arrests after the confrontation, which came a year after another right-wing demonstration erupted into violence in The Hague.
Rioters clashed with police and vandalised a political party's office just weeks before the Netherlands held a general election.
Police officers used tear gas and a water cannon to disperse the rioters.
Hundreds of people attended the demonstration wearing black and waving flags which called for tougher asylum policies.
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The leader of centrist political party D66, Rob Jetten - who has since become Dutch prime minister - posted on X: "Scum. You keep your hands off political parties.
"If you think you can intimidate us, tough luck. We will never let extremist rioters take our beautiful country away."
Another group of rioters headed towards the Dutch parliament complex, but police prevented them from entering.
The Saudi civil defence sent overnight phone alerts on Saturday warning of potential aerial attacks in Riyadh and the city of Al-Kharj east of the capital.
Footage later emerged showing a pillar of black smoke, with the airport's main terminal building in the foreground.
At least one explosion was heard, but no casualties or damage were reported.
It is unclear what the Houthis targeted in Riyadh, but they claimed to have attacked a facility of oil firm Aramco in the Red Sea city of Yanbu.
Saudi-led coalition forces later confirmed that the rebels had tried to attack the capital with a ballistic missile, which was intercepted.
The Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen and much of the north, have been engaged in attacks against Saudi Arabia since declaring a naval blockade against Riyadh in July.
The Houthis have carried out strikes on Saudi vessels in the Red Sea, and this appears to be their first strike against Riyadh since the start of the current conflict.
It has threatened global oil supplies amid the ongoing US-Iran war, putting alternative Red Sea shipping routes at risk while the Strait of Hormuz remains blockaded.
The Houthis said the latest operation was launched in response to an attack on the Yemeni capital Sanaa, which they currently control.
A US State Department security alert issued on Saturday urged Americans in the region to "exercise heightened vigilance" and said that Americans outside the Middle East "should seriously reconsider travel to and through the region".
The UN Security Council "condemned in the strongest terms continued Houthi attacks against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including attacks impacting civilian and energy infrastructure, which have resulted in the injury of civilians, including women and children" in a statement on Friday.
The Security Council also condemned "Houthi military escalation in Yemen".
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US President Donald Trump has previously refused Saudi requests for direct US military intervention against the Houthis.
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told Al Jazeera that Tehran wanted the conflict to end in an interview on Saturday.
Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan also said that Turkey would step in to help Saudi Arabia under a trilateral defence pact which would also include Pakistan.