Pro-Palestine activists spray and slash University of Cambridge's historic ... trends now
Pro-Palestine protesters have destroyed a painting of Lord Balfour at Trinity College Cambridge.
Protest group Palestine Action shared a video of a demonstrator slashing the portrait and spraying it with red paint.
A woman is seen on the footage defacing the painting with a sharp object, and spraying paint from a can over Balfour's face.
The Conservative politician gave his name to the Balfour Declaration - a public statement issued by the British government to create a 'national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine, paving the way for the founding of Israel in 1948.
The declaration, made in 1917, was contained within a letter from Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a British Jewish leader.
A pro-Palestine protester has slashed and sprayed a painting of Lord Balfour at the University of Cambridge
Among the declaration's lasting consequences was increased support for Zionism within the Jewish community, and it formed part of the founding of Mandatory Palestine.
Balfour succeeded his uncle Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister in 1902 and served until his resignation in 1905.
He later became foreign secretary under David Lloyd George, but was excluded from the small war cabinet and the inner workings of government.
The oil on canvas painting, currently housed at the University of Cambridge, was by artist Philip Alexius de Laszlo and was completed in 1914.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.
Palestine Action said it 'vowed to continue their direct campaign' which it said was in response to the presence of Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms supplier, in Britain.
It wrote: 'Arthur Balfour, then UK Foreign secretary, issued a declaration which promised to build "a national home for the Jewish people" in
