Led By Donkeys has been awarded £27,216 in compensation after a giant banner reading “Yes It’s A Genocide” was confiscated by Greater London Authority officials and later destroyed by waste firm Veolia.
Banner seized in December 2024
The 40-metre by 40-metre banner was unfurled in Parliament Square, central London, on 4 December 2024, just over a year after Israel’s assault on Gaza began following the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks. GLA heritage wardens seized the banner at the scene.
Led By Donkeys said its 19-month effort to retrieve the banner was initially refused. The GLA later informed the group that the banner had been handed to Veolia, which destroyed it.
Compensation agreed after legal letters
After legal demands were sent to either the GLA or Veolia to cover the banner’s cost, Veolia agreed to pay £27,216.
Ben Stewart, a co-founder of Led By Donkeys, said: “The Parliament Square banner was in collaboration with one of the world’s leading genocide scholars, but still the authorities threw process out the window and simply seized and destroyed our property. Pursuing compensation was never about the money, it was about defending space to protest Israel’s war crimes.
“Palestine protests are treated differently in Britain to all other forms of activism. Direct action is regarded as terrorism and words on a placard are rendered illegal. Over the years we’ve delivered banners, put up billboards and done guerilla projections across the country, but the only time our equipment has been seized and destroyed was when it related to Palestine.”
Context of genocide allegations
The banner was filmed from the air and shared on social media with a voiceover from Holocaust historian Prof Amos Goldberg, who said: “This is exactly what a genocide looks like.”
In September 2024, the UN independent international commission of inquiry concluded that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza and that Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, incited these acts. Last month, the commission said Israel continued to commit genocide by targeting Palestinian children. Israel has denied the allegations, calling the reports “distorted and false” and “a libellous sham”.
Multiple legal and rights experts, including UN investigators, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and genocide scholars, have concluded Israel is committing what is considered the most serious international crime.
In February 2025, the European Legal Support Center and Forensic Architecture launched the “index of repression”, recording over 900 instances of Palestinian solidarity being “silenced, criminalised and sanctioned” in Britain in the last six years.
Responses from GLA and Veolia
A GLA spokesperson said: “A banner seized by GLA heritage wardens following an unauthorised protest in December was unfortunately damaged during storage and subsequently disposed of by our contractors.”
A Veolia spokesperson said: “We were asked by our client to collect the banner and store it temporarily at one of our local depots. Regrettably, after around 12 weeks, the banner’s condition deteriorated and became a health and safety hazard for our operations and the depot had to dispose of it. We have reimbursed Led By Donkeys for the full cost of the banner, due to the unintentional damage caused.”
