Two Youth Demand supporters have been found guilty of criminal damage after pasting a photo of a Gazan mother and child over Picasso masterpiece “Motherhood” at the National Gallery to demand a two-way arms embargo on Israel. [1]
Monday Malachi Rosenfeld and Jai Halai took action at the National Gallery on October 9th 2024, as the cumulative death toll from Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza reached 41,870, including 16,765 children – it now stands at 73,231, with 173,686 wounded. [2][3]
The image used 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”. Since the photograph was taken in 2023, Al-Shifa hospital was subsequently completely destroyed by the IDF. [4]
The defendants stood trial at Southwark Crown Court before Judge Tomlinson, accused of causing £7,196 of damage to the floor of the National Gallery, although the painting was found to be unharmed.
After a 5 day trial and 9 hours of deliberation, the jury found them guilty by a majority verdict of 10-2. Sentencing will be on 8th September.
Following the verdict Jai Halai, 25, an NHS worker from Barnet said:
“To the two members of the jury who held out on their not guilty stance right until the end you have my gratitude. To stand against 10 of your peers after deliberating for 9 hours and stay true to your beliefs is no small feat. It is an act of resistance in itself and you have my thanks.
To the other 10 jurors I can not blame you for convicting us. It is a heavy responsibility being a juror, not helped by our archaic system of justice. You heard that we did not deny anything about what happened on the day. Your role was to judge our intentions and whether we were reckless about risking damage. You heard about what spurred us to take action – the deaths of the children, genocide and a sense of responsibility to act. I’m grateful that you took a long time to consider the evidence in front of you.”
The court heard how the defendants entered the National Gallery armed with folding water bottles, red powder paint and a poster. Once inside the gallery, they filled the bottles with water and added paint. The jury were played video footage which showed them pasting the photo over the glass cover of the Picasso painting, then Monday Malachi Rosenfeld poured red paint on the floor and put her hands in it and Jai Halai joined her.
The prosecution argued that the damage caused to the wooden floor by the action had cost the National Gallery £7,196 to rectify. This included mopping up the water based paint, cutting out and replacing a section of floor that had warped and rebuffing and lacquering the entire room. The defence questioned why the National Gallery had found it necessary to include the cost of treating the whole floor when only a small section had been damaged.
In giving evidence, the defendants explained that the picture of the Gazan mother and child they chose to paste over the Picasso mirrored the pain and distress of all the mothers in Gaza. This picture also bore a strong resemblance to the Picasso painting “Motherhood” and it was known that Picasso had expressed anti war views in his paintings. The use of the red paint in the action was designed to symbolise the blood of Palestinians and its purpose was to protest against UK government involvement in genocide.
The defendants argued that their action was not reckless, they had taken great care to avoid getting paint anywhere near the painting and had previously tested the paint on a wooden floor elsewhere and found that it was easily cleaned off with water. They each argued that their intention was not to cause damage, but to raise awareness of their cause and to protest against UK government involvement in the genocide in Gaza.
When asked about what motivated them to do the action, Monday Malachi said that as a Jew, prior to October 7th 2023 she had been pro-Israel but news reports about the numbers of children killed by Israel led her to the conclusion that “what was happening in Gaza was wrong”.
Jai explained that he had first learned about what was happening in Palestine in 2013, when the news reported on the Israeli operation Protective Edge, the single largest loss of life caused by Israel since 1996. As a healthcare worker he was particularly affected by the attacks on hospitals, healthcare infrastructure and blockades on medical equipment after October 7th 2023. In particular, one week before the action at the National Gallery he saw footage of the Israeli strike on al-Aqsa hospital, with patients taking shelter in the hospital courtyard and patients being burned alive, including a 20 year old man, burning alive in hospital bed whilst still attached to an IV drip.
ENDS
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Notes to Editors
[1] Youth Demand was a youth-led resistance campaign launched in March 2024 to fight for an end to genocide in Palestine and across the globe as a result of the climate crisis. Our final action was on 31st October 2025.
[2] Youth Demand supporters paste bloodied Gazan parent and child onto Picasso’s ‘Motherhood’
https://youthdemand.org/2024/10/09/youth-demand-supporters-paste-bloodied-gazan-parent-and-child-onto-picassos-motherhood/
[3] 14.07.26 Palestine weekly: Israel attacks children, hospitals in bloody week in Gaza
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/7/14/palestine-weekly-israel-attacks-children-hospitals-in-bloody-week-in-gaza
