Met Police probe suspected hate crime after paint thrown on north London building
Police are investigating a suspected hate crime after paint was thrown on a north London business premises.
The Metropolitan Police received reports of criminal damage at 9.29am on Saturday on High Street, Hampstead, and said officers are on the scene.
This came after campaign group Palestine Action posted photographs of red paint splattered on the windows of two buildings in London.
One was at the premises of Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (Bicom), Palestine Action said on X, formerly Twitter.
Images shared by the group appear to show paint covering a property on Hampstead High Street, which is an address listed for Bicom.
In another post, Palestine Action claimed it had targeted the Jewish National Fund (JNF) premises.
On its website, JNF UK says it is “Britain’s oldest Israel charity” and a long-standing supporter of “zionist pioneers”.
Palestine Action said Saturday’s protests were carried out on Balfour Day.
On November 2 1917, the Balfour Declaration stated British support for establishing a home for Jews in Palestine.
The Palestine Action group describes itself as a “direct action network dismantling British complicity with Israeli apartheid”.
Following the incident in Hampstead on Saturday, Detective Chief Inspector Paul Ridley said: “I know that incidents like this cause significant concern in the community.
“I want to offer my full reassurance that this incident will be robustly investigated. We have been clear that we have zero tolerance for hate crime.”
Protesters marched through central London on the same day, from Whitehall towards Nine Elms Lane.
The Metropolitan Police arrested a man and a woman on suspicion of carrying a placard expressing support for a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act.
Photographs of the protest show other people carrying signs that said “authentic rabbis always opposed Zionism and the State of Israel” and “Judaism condemns the State of ‘Israel’ and its atrocities”.
The death toll from more than a year of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has passed 43,000, Palestinian officials reported this week, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants.