Palestinian ambassador protests to Foreign Office over ’erasure’ by British Museum

The Palestinian ambassador to the UK has called for Foreign Office intervention after the British Museum removed references to Palestine from its exhibits. The UK recognised the state of Palestine in September 2025, but the same year the museum removed the name “Palestine” from a panel listing the present-day countries encompassed by the ancient Levant, and replaced it with Gaza and the West Bank. The ambassador, Husam Zomlot, has demanded its restoration, and called for discussions with the museum over the removal of “Palestine” and “Palestinian” from the explanatory panels of a number of exhibits in the ancient Levant and Egyptian rooms. Zomlot said it was a historical “erasure” at a time when Israel was conducting a campaign of destruction against Palestinians that several human rights organisations and a report by a UN independent commission have deemed is a genocide. Israel has removed archaeological relics from the occupied Palestinian territories, and in September last year bombed the most important storage depot of ancient artefacts in Gaza City, pulverising three decades of archaeological work. A specialist in the restoration and maintenance of antiquities works on cleaning artefacts in dug up during an archaeological excavation in Gaza City. Photograph: Loay Ayyoub/The Observer Zomlot was invited to meet the museum’s director, Nicholas Cullinan, and some of its curators on 24 March but said he was given no undertaking the changes would be reversed. …