The word "Gaza" was scribbled on a statue depicting Anne Frank in Amsterdam, writes Dagens Nyheter with reference to CNN. It was on Tuesday that the police received a report that the statue had been vandalized because someone had scribbled "Gaza" on it with red paint.
The police have launched an investigation into the incident, which is strongly condemned by Amsterdam's mayor Femke Halsema. "No Palestinian has been helped by her valuable statue being defiled", she writes on Instagram.
Anne Frank died in the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen in 1945. The statue stands near the house where she lived until 1942 when she and her family went into hiding until they were betrayed and deported.
The bronze sculpture is created by the artist Jet Schepp and depicts Anne Frank on her way to the hiding place, dressed in multiple layers of clothing with a bag in one hand and a school bag under the other arm.