Belfast-based Palestine campaigner calls Hamas incursion into Israel 'a counter-attack' - Amnesty International states latest escalation was caused by Hamas

Mohammed Samaana, a qualified nurse in his late 40s who originally hails from Nablus in the West Bank, was one of those speaking at a rally at Belfast City Hall on Sunday in response to the resurgence in violence in Israel / Palestine.

The footage was posted online by People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll in the form of an edited clip of the rally; the words below from Mr Samaana were the only ones included in the clip - anything else he said was left out.

The clip shows Mr Samaana, a member of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, saying: "Biden declared his support for Israel.

"He said 'solid rock support' to Israel, and right to defend itself - which means a green light to murder Palestinians…

"Mr Biden: do you remember the Ukraine counter-attack? You supported it. This was the Palestinian counter-attack."

This was followed by a shout of "hear, hear" and cheers from the crowd.

Asked to elaborate on his comments by the News Letter, he said: “Any loss of life is regrettable.

"The main reason behind the suffering and any loss of life is Israeli illegal occupation and colonisation of Palestinian land.

"The way forward is for Israel to respect the international law and UN resolutions, to end its occupation of Palestinian land, and to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes from which they were uprooted when Israel was created in 1948.”

The renewed middle east violence began at around 6.30am local time on Saturday (3.30am GMT) with a salvo of rockets from Gaza Strip – the small Palestinian enclave to the south-west of Israel which is controlled by Hamas – and an invasion of Israeli territory by Hamas members on land, via speedboats, and via paragliders.

By the end of the weekend, the Israeli dead (who were largely civilians) numbered at least in the high hundreds, and notably included upwards of 250 young partygoers at an open-air music festival.

Hamas also seized an as-yet unknown number of hostages, and videos are circulating of bloodied civilian captives and dead bodies being paraded in public by the group.

Israel responded with airstrikes into the Gaza Strip and by cutting off electricity, food, and water to the enclave's roughly two million inhabitants.

Mr Samaana is a joint UK-citizen and has lived in Northern Ireland for over 20 years.

Shortly before the Brexit vote in 2016, Amnesty International had issued a press release which was widely reported at the time saying that Mr Samaana - an Amnesty member - had been "verbally attacked" in a Belfast bar.

“On Saturday night, a man I have never met before said to me: 'You from the EU? F**k off back to your country. Get the f**k out of our country'," said Mr Samaana (Palestine is a long way from the EU).

“What makes me really sad is that the three men and three women who were with him didn’t say a word, condoning his racism by their silence. I think everyone now needs to speak out and challenge racism wherever and whenever we see it.”

Asked about Mr Samaana's comments at the rally, Amnesty International said he "was not speaking for or representing Amnesty at this event".

It directed the News Letter to a statement, issued at 9.30am on Saturday, in which Amnesty stated that "the escalation in violence began with Hamas firing rockets into Israel and launching an unprecedented operation by its fighters".

The statement said "Israeli security forces and Palestinian armed groups must make every effort to protect the lives of civilians" and accused "Palestinian armed groups [of] acts amounting to war crimes" - adding that "the root causes of these repeated cycles of violence must be addressed as a matter of urgency".

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