Busts of the president of Israel were stolen from the university

Police are investigating reports of a burglary at a university in which two busts of Israel’s first president were stolen.

Footage circulating online shows two masked men smashing a glass display case in Manchester University’s chemistry building and removing two busts of Chaim Weizmann, who was a lecturer there in the early 1900s.

The Palestine Action Group said it had “stolen” the busts to commemorate the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, in which British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour supported the creation of a “national home for the Jewish people.”

Greater Manchester Police said they “received reports of a burglary at a university building in Oxford Road, Manchester … shortly before midnight last night”.

Weizmann taught at the university after moving to England from Belarus in 1904, and became president of Israel in 1948, shortly after the country’s founding.

Palestine Action said Weizmann “secured the Balfour Declaration”.

In other incidents in the UK, Palestine Action activists attacked the London offices of the UK-Israel Communication and Research Center and the Jewish National Fund.

They also poured red paint on the buildings of the University of Cambridge.

A spokesman for the University of Manchester said it was “aware of footage circulating online after last evening in our chemistry building” and had reported it to the police.