Supporters of Youth Demand have pasted a photo of a mother and child in the Gaza Strip over a Picasso masterpiece in the National Gallery.
The two protesters entered room 43 of the gallery shortly before noon and taped the photograph on the protective glass of the Maternity painting.
The pair then poured red paint on the gallery floor before the police were called and they were arrested.
The image, which shows a Gaza mother clutching her injured son while covered in rubble, was taken by Palestinian journalist Ali Jadallah.
The action group, which emerged from the student branch of Just Stop Oil, says it is calling for a two-way arms embargo on Israel and for the new UK government to halt all new oil and gas licenses granted from 2021.
A spokesperson for the National Gallery said no damage had been caused to any of the paintings in the room, but confirmed it was currently closed to the public following the incident.
It’s the latest in a long series of stunts protesters have carried out at the gallery: Just Stop Oil activists have thrown soup at two of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings on two separate occasions.
The two supporters entered room 43 of the gallery shortly after noon and taped a photograph of a Gaza mother holding her child on the protective glass.
The action group says it is calling for a two-way arms embargo on Israel and for the new UK government to halt all new oil and gas licenses granted from 2021.
The couple also threw red paint on the gallery floor.
One of the activists involved in the stunt was Jai Halai, 23, an NHS worker from London.
He said: ‘I’m taking action with Youth Demand because by now it’s been over a year seeing my colleagues in the health field decimated. Decimated by bombs, by bullets and by having to operate, without medical equipment, on starving children.
‘We need a bilateral arms embargo on Israel now; 87% of the British public want this and have never been more disillusioned with our Government and our political class who do not represent us. We need a revolution in our democracy.
‘Direct action is what gave us our rights and is the only way to move towards adequate justice. Civil resistance is our duty as young people: to defend those who have no voice today and defend our future. It’s time to take to the streets; Let the revolution come!
The artwork in question was painted by the famous Spanish artist in 1901 and depicts a mother cradling a naked child, its long limbs folded in her embrace as if still in the womb.
Also participating was Politics and International Relations student Monday-Malachi Rosenfeld, 21, who said: ‘I am taking action because, as a Jew, I feel it is my duty to denounce the genocide being committed in Gaza.
‘I want the world to know that this is not in the Jewish name and I want to see a free Palestine. When Keir Starmer says Britain supports Israel, he is wrong.
“We know full well that this is genocide, not ‘self-defence’ and we, as the British people, say enough is enough.”
Last month, two of the group’s activists spray painted the words “Genocide Conference” on the main entrance to the Labor Party conference.
Police were called to the gallery and arrested the two protesters.
Two Youth Demand supporters are seen spray-painting the words “Genocide Conference” on the main entrance to the Labor Party conference.
Three Just Stop Oil supporters poured soup over two of Van Gogh’s paintings at the ‘Poets and Lovers’ exhibition at the National Gallery after other activists were jailed for doing the same in 2022.
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In October 2022, Phoebe Plummer, 23 (left) and fellow activist Anna Holland, 22 (right), threw two cans of Heinz soup at the Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London.
The paintings were removed from display and examined by a conservator who said they were not damaged.
Protesters spray painted the words on 12 windows before security noticed at the Liverpool conference. They were then approached by plainclothes police officers and arrested.
The group’s latest stunt comes a month after supporters of its sister organization Just Stop Oil dumped soup on two of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings.
Their actions came on the same day that fellow activists Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were jailed for doing the same to the famous painter’s Sunflowers masterpiece.
After covering the paintings with soup, the three activists took off their jackets to reveal Just Stop Oil t-shirts, with one of them saying, “Future generations will consider these prisoners of conscience to be on the right side of history.”
Just Stop Oil later revealed that the three activists were community worker Phil Green, 24, from Cornwall, retired teacher Ludi Simpson, 71, from Bradford and grandmother Mary Patricia Somerville, 77, from Bradford. .
The National Gallery confirmed that the three activists had been arrested and that the paintings remain unharmed.
Plummer and Holland were jailed for two years and 20 months respectively after causing £10,000 worth of damage to the artwork’s gilded frame when it was displayed at the National Gallery in London just under two years ago.
Gallery staff inspected the painting, valued at up to £72.5 million, and the frame for damage while the women were still attached to the wall, and were concerned that soup had dripped through the protective glass. .
The couple had been to the Trafalgar Square museum a day before the incident and bought the cans of soup at a Tesco supermarket in central London.
They denied it, but a jury convicted them of property damage after a four-day trial at Southwark Crown Court.
Plummer said he had “made peace” with his decision and smiled as he was sentenced.
