Police investigate suspected hate crime after paint thrown on north London building

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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 Hampstead High Street at 9.29am on Saturday. They said officers attended the scene.

It 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 the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (Bicom), Palestine Action said on X (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 describes itself as “Britain’s oldest Israel charity” and a longstanding supporter of “Zionist pioneers”.

Palestine Action said Saturday’s protests had been made to coincide with Balfour Day. On 2 November 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.”

Meanwhile on Saturday, protestors marched through central London, from Whitehall towards Nine Elms Lane. During the march, 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 reading “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.