PALESTINE supporters have accused the University of Manchester of “cowardice” after shutting down an exhibition in its art gallery that highlighted Israeli “apartheid” following complaints from zionist groups.

The exhibition at the university’s Whitworth Art Gallery was shut completely on Sunday without explanation after the complaints were received.

The Cloud Studies/Forensic Architecture exhibition examined the evidence carried by clouds of the effects of the use of different kinds of weapons: bombs, chemical weapons and others.

Its promotional material states: “Tear gas clouds spread poison where we gather, bomb clouds vaporise buildings, chemical weapons suffocate entire neighbourhoods and air pollution targets the marginalised. 

“Our air is weaponised. Our clouds are toxic.”

Part of the exhibition features Israel’s bombing raids on Gaza in 2014, and a statement at the entrance to the exhibition refers to Israel’s “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinian neighbourhoods by “Israeli police and settlers” and Israeli “apartheid.”

Protests were received from UK Lawyers for Israel, the Manchester Jewish Representative Council, North West Friends of Israel and the Manchester Zionist Central Council.

Following the complaints, Manchester University board of governors vice-president Professor Nalin Thakkar said: “We consider it appropriate for it to be removed, which we have now done.”

On Sunday the gallery announced: “Due to unforeseen circumstances our Forensic Architecture exhibition will be closed today.”

Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign chairwoman Norma Turner, who has seen the exhibition, accused the university of “cowardice” and said that the decision to remove the statement was “atrocious.”

She said the exhibition was science-based.

“It does not just cover Palestine, it covers South America, Africa, America as well as Gaza and the bombing by Israel in 2014,” Ms Turner said.

“It pictures clouds and where they come from, how huge the bombing was, how they can tell from the clouds what bomb it was, what aircraft it came from. 

“In the clouds are concrete, gas, plastic, pieces of bodies.”

The Jewish Voices for Labour (JVL) group said that the decision was “an abject capitulation to pressure by the University of Manchester, and an act of grotesque censorship, a clear violation of academic freedom.”

The university was invited to comment.