A 38-year-old man was arrested early Friday morning after the statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, Westminster, was defaced with anti-Israel graffiti.
According to the Metropolitan Police, officers were alerted shortly after 4:00 a.m. to a man seen spraying red paint on the bronze monument. Police said the first officers arrived within minutes and arrested the suspect on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage. He remains in custody.
Video posted online shows the suspect defacing the statue wearing an orange jumpsuit with the words "I support Palestine Action," written on his back, a reference to the anti-Israel group which the UK government has banned.
Among the phrases painted on the statue were “Free Palestine," “Zionist war criminal," “Stop the Genocide," “Never again is now," and “Globalise the intifada."
The statue was cordoned off, and cleaning work began later in the morning.
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office described the incident as “completely abhorrent" and a “disgrace," stating that Churchill was a great Briton and that the perpetrator must be held accountable.
A spokesperson for the Greater London Authority said it was appalled by the vandalism and confirmed that efforts were underway to remove the graffiti as quickly as possible.
The statue has previously been targeted during protests. In recent years, it was vandalized during demonstrations, including during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
Last December, the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police announced that individuals chanting the slogan “globalise the intifada" could face arrest. The decision followed the Bondi Beach terror attack and the terror attack at Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester on October 2.
The 12-foot monument, created by Ivor Roberts-Jones, was unveiled in 1973 by Lady Clementine Churchill, eight years after the wartime prime minister’s death. It stands among several statues of prominent statesmen in and around Parliament Square.