Amsterdam war memorial defaced during pro-Palestinian march

A 24-year-old man has been arrested in Amsterdam after scrawling “Never again is now” on the city’s National Monument to Dutch victims of the Second World War during a pro-Palestinian protest.

The act of vandalism, carried out on Saturday in Dam Square, came as up to 2,000 demonstrators marched through the capital denouncing Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which organisers described as genocide.

The graffiti prompted immediate police intervention, with the suspect detained at the scene. An ANP photographer confirmed the arrest.

The monument, erected in 1956 to honour more than 100,000 Dutch Jews murdered in the Shoah alongside other war victims, is regarded as the country’s most sacred site of national remembrance. The Netherlands lost a higher percentage of its Jewish population than any other Western nation during the Holocaust, with 75 percent – 102,000 people – killed.

A spokesperson for the International Socialists, one of the groups behind the march, called the graffiti “tasteless” but insisted it was separate from the demonstration. She stressed no permanent damage had been done, adding: “It can be cleaned.” She further claimed, “not necessarily a boundary has been crossed” and defended the right to accuse Israel of genocide.

Protesters carried mock coffins and blood-stained press vests in tribute to journalists killed in Gaza. The march, which moved from the Dam to Museumplein, was otherwise described by police as largely orderly.