Pro-Palestine activists remove busts of Israel's 1st president in move 'to mark Balfour day'

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) — Pro-Palestine protesters have removed two busts of Israel’s first president from the University of Manchester, the group Palestine Action announced Saturday.

A statement by the group said the two sculptures of Chaim Weizmann were taken from a display case at University of Manchester in an act of protest to mark the 107th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

"Weizmann secured the Balfour Declaration, a British pledge written 107 years ago, which began the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by signing the land away," said Palestine Action.

Brief video footage shared on X by the group showed two activists breaking the glass of the displays with hammers and taking the sculptures.

Saying that the ongoing Nakba — "catastrophe," a reference to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in 1948, when Israel was founded — has "culminated in the genocide today," it noted that for over a year, Palestinians in Gaza have been subject to daily bombings, slaughter of their families and destruction of their homes, hospitals, schools, and civil infrastructure.

Despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has continued a devastating offensive on Gaza since an attack last year by the Palestinian resistance group.

More than 43,300 people have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 102,000 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.

"From the Balfour Declaration to today, the UK remains an active participant in the colonisation, genocide and occupation of Palestine," read the Palestine Action statement.

Saturday marks the 107th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration in which the British government, in the Balfour Declaration, called for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

Last year, a Foreign Office building in London was targeted by Palestine Action activists who wrote "Britain is guilty" on it in blood-red paint on the 106th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.