The Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester has been accused of hosting a “hate-filled” art show on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The exhibition, titled Cloud Studies and created by Forensic Architecture, a research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London, purports to detail the environmental effects of Israel’s military action in Gaza and the West Bank - as well as looking at "toxic clouds" in places such Indonesia, Argentina, Hong Kong, the UK, US, Mexico, Turkey, Lebanon.

Visitors are shown an opening statement headed “Forensic Architecture stands with Palestine”, and can then browse films and displays that show how “tear gas, bomb clouds, chemical weapons... suffocate entire neighbourhoods and air pollution targets the marginalised”.

Language used in the exhibition includes phrases such as the Palestinians’ “struggle against apartheid” and the problem of “settler colonial violence”.

One visitor to the Whitworth told the JC: “I don’t remember experiencing anything so hate-filled in an art gallery. The information is totally decontextualised and there is no mention of Hamas or the reasons for the conflicts”.

UK Lawyers for Israel have written to the vice-chancellor of Manchester University — to which the Whitworth belongs – reminding it that the gallery is “legally bound by the Public Sector Equality Duty”.

The lawyers said they were concerned about “the impact of the inflammatory language and representations contained in the exhibition on the Jewish people in Manchester”.

Eyal Weizman, the Israeli-born director of Forensic Architecture (FA), which devised the exhibition and accompanying film, defended the show.

He told the JC that it was “correct” that the exhibition made no reference to Hamas or its sustained rocket attacks on Israel. “We did not report on the rockets, nor did we report on the reason that the rockets were fired, in the dispossession of Palestinian families in Jerusalem and the tear gassing of al Aqsa Mosque”, he said.

Responding to the charge that the content of the exhibition could ramp up hatred against the Manchester Jewish community, Mr Weizman said: “I disagree with those that say so: like anti-Palestinian racism, we oppose and condemn antisemitism, and wrote it in our statement”.

Whitworth director Alistair Hudson was not available to respond to the JC but told complainants in an email he was presently involved in “the acquisition of a body of works by the American Jewish artist Linda Stein”.

Raphi Bloom, co-chair of the North West Friends of Israel, said Mr Hudson’s response was “just another version of ‘some of my best friends are Jewish’.”

Mr Hudson came under fire last month after the gallery posted a statement on its website expressing solidarity and support for “decolonisation” in Palestine. He apologised for the post.

Mr Weizman added that “as a Jew”, he believed that the work done by Forensic Architecture did “more to dispel prejudice and hatred, including that against Jews, than an unqualified support of apartheid in Palestine…I hope that one day you would come to support, and even be proud of, those of us promoting such values in Palestine and elsewhere”.

Mr Bloom pointed out that the exhibition’s reference to “occupied Gaza” was incorrect: Israeli forces pulled out of the Strip in 2005. Mr Weizman argued: “By most international legal opinion, including that of the UN, the Gaza Strip is still under occupation.”