London police arrest man over posters featuring photograph of armed Israeli settler

Police in London have arrested a man following a complaint about posters showing an armed Israeli settler taunting a Palestinian woman in the occupied West Bank. The posters, which appeared during local elections in May, carried the caption “Labour’s monsters” and protested against the party’s support for Israel during what the source article described as the Gaza genocide.

The Metropolitan Police said a 36-year-old man was arrested on October 1 on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence. A spokesperson linked the arrest to posters displayed across Tower Hamlets in May 2026, describing them as antisemitic. The man was subsequently released on bail while further inquiries continued.

The investigation followed a complaint alleging that the image had antisemitic connotations. According to The Daily Telegraph, the complainant called it a “monstrous characterisation” of a Jewish man and said the photograph had been “selected to appear menacing”. Those allegations concerned the use of a photograph showing the armed man in military uniform confronting the Palestinian woman.

The complaint also objected to the political message conveyed by the posters. It said they appeared to portray Labour as serving Israeli government policy and to suggest that the party was complicit in genocide. The posters combined the photograph with criticism of Labour’s backing for Israel.

Italian photojournalist Pietro Masturzo took the image on October 12, 2025, in Idhna, an occupied Palestinian village west of Hebron. It was the first day of the olive harvest. Describing the scene, Masturzo said the settler repeatedly imitated the sound a shepherd uses to gather a flock, addressing Palestinians as though they were his animals.

The photograph later appeared in the April edition of L’Espresso. The magazine published it alongside reporting on the growth of Israel’s settler movement and the consequences for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Its coverage also included testimony from Palestinians in the Jordan Valley, where settlers carry out attacks almost daily, often with support from Israeli forces.

In September, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband described attacks by Jewish settlers as “terrorism” backed by the Israeli state. He also said settlers were responsible for ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.