Media monitor Honest Reporting has condemned a Sunday Times cartoon that depicts the Israeli Prime Minister crushing victims in a blood-splattered wall.

Titled Israeli Elections Will Cementing Peace Continue?, Gerald Scarfes cartoon shows a monstrous Benjamin Netanyahu looming over a wall that is crushing innocent women and children, with blood oozing from the cracks between the bricks. Mr Scarfe, a respected cartoonist, is perhaps best known for illustrating the album cover for Pink Floyds The Wall.

The cartoon appeared in the national paper on Sunday, coinciding with the annual Holocaust Memorial Day.

Honest Reporting said the inclusion of the image was doubly offensive given the date it was published. Israels security barrier (of which the vast majority is a fence and not a wall) is meant to protect Israeli civilians against Palestinian terrorism, they said. In any case, the imagery of this cartoon amounts to a blood libel on a day when the millions of victims of the Holocaust are remembered.

Crossbench peer Baroness Deech also criticised the Sunday Times for choosing HMD to demonise/insult Israel. Ignores bloodshed in Egypt, Algeria, Syria, she noted on Twitter.

Last year there was outrage after the Guardian published a cartoon depicting Mr Netanyahu as a puppet-master pulling the strings of world leaders.