Watchdog bans Israeli tourism advert

The posters, featuring a boy snorkelling with dolphins, were placed on London's Underground train stations, as part of an Israeli tourism campaign.

They carried the slogan "few countries pack so much variety into such a small space as Israel" and a contested map that sparked more than 400 complaints from pro-Palestinian groups and members of the public.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld the complaints, saying the map implied that the two territories were an undisputed part of Israel.

"We understood that the borders and status of the occupied territories of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights were the subject of much international dispute," the ASA said in a statement on Wednesday.

"And because we considered that the ad implied that those territories were part of the State of Israel, we concluded that the ad was misleading."