Minster pulls exhibition over Hamas fighter names

A church exhibition honouring people who have lost their lives in Gaza has been removed from show after it emerged the display was said to feature names of several Hamas fighters.

Stitch Their Names Together by Mary Evers was due to run at Leeds Minster until Sunday.

The Leeds Jewish Representative Council said it provided evidence that the 16,800 names displayed included fighters linked to the armed Palestinian group.

The church said it wanted to "work with all faith groups within the city and acknowledges that by hosting this exhibition we have harmed our relationship with some in the Jewish community for which we apologise and now seek to rebuild trust."

On 7 October 2023, Hamas-led gunmen breached the Gaza border fence and attacked nearby Israeli communities, military bases and a large music festival.

About 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which at least 73,670 people have been killed, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.

The exhibition featured a series of fabric panels, each stitched using the colours of the Palestinian flag to honour Palestinians killed in Gaza - red for women, black for men and green for children.

The Stitch Their Names project said on its website: "By threading each name with deliberate care, we create a communal space for grief, remembrance, mourning, and bearing witness, affording each victim the dignity of time and reflection."

The project has been contacted by the BBC for comment.

Organiser Evers previously told The Times she had been unaware of claims that "stitched names correspond to members of proscribed organisations" until contacted by the newspaper.

She said: "We do not know that to be the case."

A spokesperson from the Leeds Jewish Representative Council said the organisation had been "trying to alert Leeds Minster to this issue for over a week".

"We were told they had done that due diligence - they had not. What they had done was check for the 12 names we had been able to submit.

"They did not dispute that those names were included in the tapestry. But, worryingly, they decided that because those particular names were not on the panels exhibited at Leeds, it did not matter.

"When we tried to take photographs of the panels they had decided to put on public display, they refused to allow us to do so."

The spokesperson said a total of 25 names of Hamas fighters had now been found on the tapestry.

"This debacle has set community relations back by years," they said.

"At a time where we have seen a rising antisemitism that goes beyond living memory in this city, it is simply astonishing that clergy and trustees of an important church should behave in this way.

"We obviously welcome the immediate cancellation of the exhibition, because even late is better than never."

They said it was "thoroughly upsetting and disheartening to find major institutions who appear not to care enough to even check their own work."

Canon Paul Maybury, on behalf of Leeds Minster, said the names featured in the exhibition were "from the published list from the Gaza Health Authority".

Maybury said that, before the exhibition opened, the Leeds Jewish Representative Council had expressed concerns that the wider project was likely to contain the names of 12 Hamas fighters.

The minster then reviewed the 90 panels selected for the church exhibition and established that the 12 names were not among them, and the exhibition proceeded.

Maybury said: "Today we received further information from the Leeds Jewish Representative Council indicating that they had evidence suggesting that there are the names of at least 18 known Hamas fighters contained in the exhibition in the minster.

"Having received this information, we immediately decided to close the exhibition to the public."

He added: "Leeds Minster categorically condemns all violence and in particular the killing of civilians and the taking of hostages, by Hamas, on October 7th 2023."

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