Palestine flag flies on Belfast City Hall

The flag of Palestine has been raised on Belfast City Hall.

It was flown after midnight on Tuesday after councillors voted for the move during a meeting on Monday evening.

A Sinn Fein motion to raise the flag on the next available day was passed by 32 votes to 28.

An Alliance Party amendment that proposed illuminating the City Hall in the colours of Palestine in January instead of raising the flag was earlier defeated by 49 votes to 11.

The council had voted by a larger majority last month to fly the flag on City Hall on November 29 to mark the UN international day of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

However, that did not occur after the council received legal advice following a unionist move to initiate a call-in mechanism for the proposal to be reconsidered.

A special meeting of the council was held on Monday to discuss the matter again.

While Sinn Fein welcomed the outcome of the vote, unionists expressed anger, with the TUV warning of emergency legal proceedings to challenge the decision.

In a statement on Monday evening, Sinn Fein welcomed the vote.

“In the face of Israel’s barbaric and inhumane genocide, we must continue to do all we can to show solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza,” said the party.

DUP group leader on the council, councillor Sarah Bunting, said the attempt to raise the flag was a “scandalous abuse of process”.

“This is a deeply divisive issue in Belfast, yet Sinn Fein and those who backed this move have shown no regard for the views of others and have simply railroaded their position through,” she said.

“Our small Jewish community will understandably view this as deeply intimidating and as a move that risks stoking antisemitism in our city.

“It is dangerous, it is cynical, and it must be called out for what it is.

“For decades, Sinn Fein has sought to marginalise and silence those who disagreed with them.

“If they believe unionists will simply accept this kind of heavy-handed, intolerant behaviour today, they are badly mistaken.”

TUV councillor Ron McDowell said the council had “disgraced itself”.

He said it had trampled on the rights of the minority and shown total disregard for due process.

Mr McDowell added: “The days of unionists quietly accepting such cavalier disregard for their rights – or watching the small Jewish community in our city being trampled upon – are over.

“My position remains clear and unchanged: the only flag that should fly from City Hall is the national flag of the United Kingdom.

“But if members of council truly cared about human rights in the Middle East, they would recall that in the aftermath of the October 7 massacres (Hamas attacks in Israel in 2023), the nationalist and republican alliance in Belfast blocked any effort to light City Hall in the colours of the Israeli flag.

“Everyone can see the hypocrisy. It is nauseating and it must – and will – be called out.

“Every means at our disposal will be deployed to oppose this.”