The work, a stop sign decorated with what appears to be a trio of military drones, was stolen just one hour after the street artist posted an image of the work to Instagram on December 22.

A man referred to only as Alex told the Sun that two people, using a Lime bicycle as a makeshift ladder, removed the street sign with bolt cutters after one of the two “bashed it with his hands” in a failed attempt to remove the sign from its post.

“I opened Instagram and I saw it was posted four minutes before and I was about to go on my lunch break,” Alex told the Sun. “There were about two people there when I got there. We were all sort of admiring it and taking pictures.”

The alleged crooks stole the work at around 12:30 p.m., in full view of the crowd that had gathered to admire the mysterious Banksy’s newest work. Images of the two men, unmasked and in plain view, were posted to the tabloid’s website.

The first arrest came the following day when London’s Metropolitan police took a man into custody on suspicion of theft and criminal damage. The second arrest was made on Sunday.

While Banksy himself never explains the art he installs under the cover of night, much of what his work has an overt antiwar message. Some of the artist’s more than 12 million Instagram followers have viewed the drone-emblazoned stop sign as a call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Banksy and his artwork often make headlines. Earlier this year, his possible identity was revealed in a recently uncovered, decades-old interview on the BBC, and there has been news coverage about his artworks being removed, demolished, or restored throughout 2023.

The airstrikes, which took place after the October 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,400 Israelis and involved the taking of 240 hostages, have “destroyed or damaged” roughly 45 percent of housing in Gaza, leading to what the United Nations has called a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

Historic religious sites, museums, and archaeological sites have been destroyed, the report says, noting that Gaza has been a cultural hub for every civilization that has conquered the region, from Egypt in the early 15th century BCE, to the Greeks under Alexander the Great, to the Roman and Byzantine Empires.

There have been reports of notable centuries old churches and mosques having fallen victim to the bombing campaign, including the Omari Mosque in Jabaliya in Northern Gaza; the Saint Porphyrius church, which is thought to be the third oldest church in the world; and the Ibn Uthman and Sayed Hashem Mosques. 

“The report shows the importance of Gaza’s heritage,” said Isber Sabrine, a Syrian archaeologist and president of Heritage for Peace. “It is a small area but with a lot of heritage.”

According to the Palestinian ministry of tourism and antiquities, it’s currently not possible to get a full assessment of damaged or destroyed heritage sites, given the conditions on the ground. “We cannot ask [staff in Gaza] to check on the sites during this time,” Jehad Yasin, the ministry’s director of museums and excavations, told the Art Newspaper.

The campaign has also taken its toll on museums in the region, with damage reported at the Rafah Museum, which posted videos to Facebook showing that appeared to show its partially collapsed building. The Al Qarara Cultural Museum and Deir Al Balah museum also reported damage.

As first reported in the Art Newspaper, the Bangladeshi photojournalist and event co-curator Shahidul Alam posted “content that can be read as antisemitic and antisemitic content,” according to officials, including posts compared Israel’s assault on Northern Gaza to the Holocaust and accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people.

Authorities in the three German cities said in a statement that their “relationship of trust” with Alam “has been severely damaged” after his posts.

According to the Art Newspaper, organizers from the host cities approached Alam, as well as his two co-curators, Tanzim Wahab and Munem Wasif, to discuss the social media posts “in order to sensitize the curators to Germany’s special historical responsibility for the state of Israel and its right to exist.” Alam continued to share his views on social media. “[He] sees himself as an activist and demands freedom of expression,” the organizers said. For their part, Wahab and Wasif refused to work on the biennial if Alam was barred from participating.

“The consequences of the cancellation for the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie and the organizing team are far-reaching,” the organizers said. “They jeopardize the future of the entire event. In the time ahead, we will do everything in our power to maintain the Biennale as one of the largest and most important photography events in Germany and Europe in the long term.”

The future of the biennale is further threatened by the announcement earlier this year that the German chemicals company BASF would be pulling its sponsorship of the fair.

According to a press release, the cities and the exhibition’s board members are “holding talks with the invited artists, curators and advisors in an endeavor to find target-oriented solutions.”

Earlier this month the entire selection committee of Documenta resigned, starting with Israeli artist and philosopher Bracha L. Ettinger and Indian poet and critic Ranjit Hoskote. The remaining four members of the selection committee, Simon Njami, Gong Yan, Kathrin Rhomberg, and María Inés Rodríguez, followed suit last week, saying in a statement that “in the current circumstances we do not believe that there is a space in Germany for an open exchange of ideas and the development of complex and nuanced artistic approaches that documenta artists and curators deserve.”