New mural in Tel Aviv shows Bart Simpson as a Hamas terrorist, Netanyahu, Eisenkot chasing him

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yashar politician Gadi Eisenkot, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying batons, chase Bart Simpson, who has been transformed into a Hamas terrorist in a new Tel Aviv mural titled RUN.

The latest intervention of the Italian pop artist who goes by the name ‘aleXsandro Palombo’ appeared on September 29 as a new mural located on Yeven Metsula Street, Tel Aviv.

The mural was painted less than a month before Israel's October 27 Knesset election and days before the anniversary of October 7.

The scene turned a cartoon chase into what Vanessa Esteban describes as “an immediate and provocative image.” Simpson was reinvented as a young Hamas fighter pursued through the street by Netanyahu and Eisenkot.

Although Netanyahu and Eisenkot sit on opposite sides of the political aisle, Palombo’s mural places the two pursuing the same target amid the campaign.

Bart as a child soldier 

Palombo’s intention to politicize Bart’s character in his new work signifies the indoctrination of minors, jihadist propaganda, and the transmission of violence to new generations, the artist explained in a statement.

“Hamas becomes a reference within the mural to an ideological system in which propaganda, the glorification of armed struggle and radicalization also reach children,” Esteban pointed out.

RUN is part of a series of new interventions that Palombo is currently creating in Israel. An Italian artist, Palombo is known for a visual language that combines pop culture, street art and striking imagery to address memory, diversity, ethics, antisemitism, violence, human rights, discrimination and the relationship between power and society.

This work was done despite graffiti being illegal in Tel Aviv, as the city has allowed most graffiti relating to October 7 to stay up.

A familiar cast 

Palombo has repeatedly reworked Simpsons characters in past works, including a mural that appeared outside the Holocaust memorial in Milan depicting Simpsons characters in Auschwitz and an image elsewhere of Marge Simpson cutting her hair in solidarity with Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who died as a result of police brutality in custody in September 2022. 

This particular image was “erased several times, and after each removal I recreated it, recontextualizing it, so that attempts at censorship and silence would not be the final answer,” Palombo told Bet Magazine Mosaico during an earlier interview.

In a 2025 interview about the vandalism of his Holocaust mural in Milan, Palombo told The Jerusalem Post that using the unmistakable style of the Simpsons allowed him to speak directly to younger generations.

The art of resilience

“I won’t give up,” Palombo asserted to Bet Magazine. “With my murals, I engage in civil resistance. I tell the story of our wounded times.”

The magazine describes Palombo’s art as “painful images inspired by current events” and “uncomfortable works that are periodically vandalized and erased by fanatical extremists.”

While his anonymity is similar to that of the artist Banksy (another well-known “hidden” urban artist), the Jüdische Allgemeine has reportedly dubbed him “the anti-Banksy,” according to Bet Magazine Mosaico, because of his opposing views on issues such as antisemitism, terrorism, and memory.

The contemporary pop artist and political activist describes himself as an "authentic outsider" but, in recent years, has had numerous works of his dedicated to combating antisemitism, preserving Jewish memory, and addressing October 7, repeatedly vandalized.

While vandalism significantly undermines an artist’s integrity, Palombo stated that “sometimes, recreating a vandalized work is an act of responsibility and resistance: I don’t give up, and I continue because those faces and those stories must not be left alone.”

Palombo did not discover his predominant themes after October 7. As early as 2014, in the series "Stop Hamas Terrorism" and "Once Upon a Time the Children of Palestine," he depicted Aladdin and Jasmine as armed terrorists threatening bound Disney princesses, alongside child characters such as Bart Simpson, Pinocchio, and Peter Pan, shown as child soldiers.