A top gallery in Manchester has removed from an exhibition a statement describing Israel as engaging in ethnic cleansing, apartheid and environmental destruction.

The Whitworth Art Gallery triggered outrage in the city’s Jewish community after it opened a show by the research group Forensic Architecture titled ‘Cloud Studies’ that displayed the controversial statement at the exhibition’s entrance under the title ‘Forensic Architecture stands with Palestine’.

The show 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. 

It features films and displays that show how “tear gas, bomb clouds, chemical weapons... suffocate entire neighbourhoods and air pollution targets the marginalised”.

The decision to remove the statement followed complaints by UK Lawyers for Israel, Manchester Jewish Representative Council, North West Friends of Israel and the Manchester Zionist Central Council.

The lawyers group wrote to Manchester University, which runs the gallery, asking whether the statement complied with its public sector equality duty to have due regard to fostering good relations between different communities.

After a meeting with the campaigners and leaders of the Whitworth Gallery, the vice-president of Manchester University, Professor Nalin Thakkar, said that “We [the Whitworth and the University] are very sorry for any distress which has been experienced by members of our Jewish community in connection with aspects of the Cloud Studies exhibition, particularly the accompanying written statement.

“We note, and understand, the concerns expressed about the inclusion of that statement ... We consider it appropriate for it to be removed, which we have now done.”

Prof Thakkar also said there would be a review of the way new artistic content is approved at the gallery.

In a joint statement after the removal of the Forensic Architecture text, the campaigners said that it had been “a factually incorrect and dangerously one-sided account on an extremely complex foreign policy issue. For a publicly funded body to support such a problematic and biased narrative was disappointing.”