BREAKING: activists target Picasso painting over Israel’s genocide in Gaza

Two supporters of Youth Demand have just pasted a photo of a Gazan mother and child over a Picasso masterpiece at the National Gallery. It was to demand a two-way arms embargo on Israel over its continued genocide in Gaza and assaults on, and war crimes in, other Middle Eastern countries.

Youth Demand: taking action over Israel via Picasso

At just before 12:00, the pair walked into room 43 at the National Gallery and plastered a photograph of a Gazan mother clutching her child over the protective glass cover of Pablo Picasso’s 1901 painting Motherhood (La Maternité), before pouring red paint on the gallery floor.

Youth Demand is calling for a two-way arms embargo on Israel and for the new UK government to halt all new oil and gas licences granted since 2021.

The image used over Picasso was taken by Palestinian journalist Ali Jadallah and shows a distressed and bloodied pair, coated in debris. His caption for it reads: “A mom holds [her] injured child after an Israeli attack, as Israeli airstrikes continue on twelfth day, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City”:

Israeli bombing raids in Palestine have killed at least 41,870 people, including 16,765 children, in the last year and since the photograph was taken in 2023, Al-Shifa hospital has been completely destroyed by the IDF.

Arms embargo NOW

One of those taking action today with the Picasso painting was Jai Halai, 23, an NHS worker from London who said:

I’m taking action with Youth Demand because at this point it’s been over one year of seeing my colleagues in the healthcare field decimated. Decimated by bombs, by bullets and by having to operate, with no medical equipment, on starved children.

We need a two way arms embargo on Israel now; 87% of the British public want this and never before have they been more disillusioned with our Government and 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 us towards proper justice. Civil resistance is our duty as young people: to defend those without a voice today and to defend our futures. It’s time to take to the streets; bring on the revolution.

Also taking action today was Monday-Malachi Rosenfeld, 21, a Politics and International Relations student at Greenwich, London who said:

I’m taking action because as a Jew, I feel like it’s my duty to call out the genocide being committed in Gaza. I want the world to know this isn’t in the jewish name and I want to see a free Palestine. When Keir Starmer says Britain stands with Israel he’s wrong. We know very well that this is a genocide, not “self defense” and we as the people of Britain say enough is enough.

Around 2,000 people in Lebanon of all ages have also been killed by Israeli airstrikes in the last year, on top of the death toll in Gaza and the West Bank. Missiles have also been launched at Iran on numerous occasions.

Stop Israel

A Youth Demand spokesperson said of the Picasso action:

Our government is arming Israel to carry out a genocide against Palestinians and killing without restrain in Lebanon. It can’t be all carrots and no sticks: a two-way arms embargo is the least Britain can do to stop displacement, destruction and death! Young people will continue to resist genocide-as-usual, sign up at youthdemand.org.

Featured image and video via Youth Demand