'This is for Palestine': Fury as women in London rip down posters of missing children kidnapped by Hamas

13 October 2023, 07:40 | Updated: 13 October 2023, 07:45

Shocking footage has shown two Palestine supporters in London ripping down missing posters of children kidnapped by Hamas.

A British-Israeli woman caught the encounter on camera as she put up posters around north London with her mother.

Neta Fibeesh said she received verbal abuse from several members of the public while putting the flyers up.

Two women came over to Ms Fibeesh and started "aggressively tearing off the flyers", she said.

In a clip shared on social media, one onlooker could be heard saying: "Why don't you do something for Palestine?"

One of the women replied: "This is for Palestine!"

Ms Fibeesh could be heard saying the issues are "not mutually exclusive", explaining: "It's children, it's innocent people."

"How about the children in Palestine?" one of the women shouted back.

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Ms Fibeesh said her experience following the initial attack at the weekend had been "devastating" but despite feeling safer back in the UK, "it is still really unpleasant".

"This past week has been just devastating," she told MailOnline.

"Innocents have been kidnapped - a close family friend of mine, her grandma is one of those who has been abducted."

She continued: "I feel safer in the UK because it's not a warzone, but it is still really unpleasant here. It's just really upsetting. 

"I know a lot of people who are scared about being Jewish now in the UK. 

"One of my friends is more religious than me, he wears a kippah and has been walking around for several days with a hat, and my dad saw someone wearing a kippah get sworn at."

In response to the video, one person said: "I can’t [even] begin to express how angry this makes me."

Another person tweeted: "This is going to spiral out of control."

A third person added: "Utterly vile."

It comes after No10 announced that an additional £3 million will be committed to provide extra security for the UK's Jewish population.

The funding will be given to the Community Security Trust (CST) as the group, which acts on the behalf of British Jews on matters of policing and racism, said it had recorded a 400% spike in antisemitic incidents in the UK since Hamas' attack on Israel at the weekend.

No10 said the additional funding will enable the CST to place additional guards at schools it supports and allow for extra security staff outside synagogues on Friday nights and Saturday mornings when Jews are marking the sabbath.

It comes as some north London Jewish schools were said to have told parents to keep their children at home on Friday.