Video: Palestine protest movement which brought part of Belfast port to a standstill issues clarification on 'Protestant unionist loyalist' attendance alongside 'Catholic nationalist republican' demonstrators

Activists carrying Palestinian flags (and in one case, a South African flag) stood blocking one of the main roads in-and-out of Belfast port on Monday night to draw attention to the plight of Gazans under Israeli siege.

They were joined by scores of others in cities across the world, as part of a movement called A15 (standing for April 15).

Pictures and video show confrontations between lorries at the port and perhaps 20 protestors.

The protest is believed to have lasted less than an hour and while the protestors said a lorry “drove into an actionist” and there had been attempts at intimidation, there were no arrests and Belfast Harbour said it was “resolved peacefully”.

The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which has been leading the protests across the island since October 7 2023, said A15 is a separate organisation.

A statement was issued from an anonymous e-mail address on A15’s behalf saying that “following the International Court of Justice's findings of a plausible genocide by Israel in Gaza, and the absence of any material action by the UK and Irish governments, it has become the responsibility of the civilian population to do everything in their power to pressure their governments”.

It added that “Belfast and its past are shaped by the intertwined processes of colonialism and industrialisation" and that the objective had been to “halt the wheels of capital”.

The statement added: “This was a coordinated act of solidarity by participants of all ages, from both the PUL and CNR communities and from a variety of ethnic, religious, economic and national backgrounds, all united in our steadfast rejection of the horrors unfolding in Palestine.

“People in Ireland are well acquainted with the violence and destruction of settler colonialism. We will always fiercely defend the rights of Palestinians until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea.

"Ní saoirse go saoirse na Palaistíne!”

The News Letter emailed the A15 address (there is no other way to contact the activists) to ask a number of questions, including whether the protests will continue, but it went unanswered.

Soon afterwards though, a “clarification” was issued which said: “We have received questions from a few outlets regarding some of the terminology (PUL and CNR) used in our press release yesterday.

“We would like to specify that these terms were used as a common albeit imperfect shorthand to describe the fact that this was a cross-community act of solidarity and people participating in it have different ethnic/cultural backgrounds in the context of NI.

"They were not meant to describe their current ideological leanings.”

The reason a South Africa flag was on display amid the protest was because that nation has launched a legal case against Israel in the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Holland.

The court issued an interim decision in January, saying its claims that Israeli actions in Gaza amount to genocide were “plausible”.

Using data supplied by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs as of January 24, the court said: “While figures relating to the Gaza Strip cannot be independently verified, recent information indicates that 25,700 Palestinians have been killed, over 63,000 injuries have been reported, over 360,000 housing units have been destroyed or partially damaged and approximately 1.7 million persons have been internally displaced.”

It also quoted from a statement by Martin Griffiths, a British diplomat and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief: “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence – while the world watches on.”