Israel-Palestine latest: Nazi SS symbols appear at Northern Ireland protest against Israeli bombing / blockade of Gaza

Alongside the banner was the flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is listed as a proscribed terrorist organisation in the EU and the USA.

Both the banner (which called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador to Ireland) and the flag were hung from the city walls during a demonstration on Saturday afternoon.

The image you see here was posted online by republican fringe group Lasair Dhearg, along with this message: "Derry Lasair Dhearg in conjunction with other Socialist Republican activists today unveiled a banner in the Guildhall Square calling for the expulsion of the 'Israeli Ambassador to Ireland'."

It was followed by these hashtags: #gaza #gazaunderattack #palestine #palestine #ireland #solidarity #genocide #gazagenocide #fromtherivertothesea #israel

The same day Lasair Dhearg posted a message on its Facebook heavily criticising Sinn Fein for its leadership's refusal to call for the ambassador's expulsion (revealed by the News Letter here):

• Rare public split appears to emerge in Sinn Fein as party top brass decline to back calls for expulsion of Israel's ambassador to Ireland

Its post said: "Mainstream political parties across Ireland have roundly condemned the actions of Palestinian resistance groups in recent weeks as they sought to rid their land of an illegal occupation.

"Significantly, Sinn Fein joined this chorus of condemnation, lest they offend their strategic partners in the US and elsewhere.

"Notably, Sinn Fein speakers who have supported this narrative have been rightly booed as a result…

"In the 1940s, the Jewish population of Europe was rounded up and placed in camps, where they were systematically exterminated and removed from the land.

"Jewish partisan groups became a safe haven for the persecuted. It is estimated that 30,000 of them organised and fought back against Fascism, and rightly so.

"If Irish Republicans at the time had called for 'dialogue' they'd have been roundly condemned by all."

It concluded: "We must not allow this new Sinn Fein position to become the expressed view of Irish Republicanism. Palestine has a right to resist."

• DUP suggests Sinn Fein is holding back on Israeli diplomatic expulsion to avoid riling up American support base

That post was accompanied by an image of a masked man in a bandana with an AK47.

• – PFLP AND SHUTZSTAFFEL –

'SS' stands for Schutzstaffel, which began as a Nazi street-fighting outfit in the 1920s but grew to become one of the most fanatical arms of the party's machine, playing a decisive role in both the aggression against Germany's neighbours and the Jewish Holocaust.

Under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler, one of the main architects of the Final Solution, the SS was the backbone of Einsatzgruppen squads which shot Jewish civilians and buried them in mass graves, and later oversaw the gassing of Jews in camps.

An estimated six million or so Jews were killed.

The SS also played a pivotal role in exterminating gentile populations in areas under Nazi occupation.

In Belarus alone – just one little part of the Eastern Front, which extended from Poland to the River Volga – the SS aided in the burning of over 650 villages (according to the official website of the Republic of Belarus), with the occupation leading to the death of over one-quarter of the entire Belorussian civilian population (according to the University of Southamption's history department).

The red-and-white flag on display in the photo at the top of this article belongs to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which has been outlawed in the EU since at least 2009, and in the USA since 1997.

It is not proscribed in the UK, however a splinter group of it called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command is proscribed.

It plays a very small role in the Palestinian Legislative Council, where it holds three out of 132 seats.

The European Council on Foreign Relations says the group "opposes a two-state solution and instead calls for the creation of a democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine through armed struggle".

It adds that "the group’s armed military wing, known as the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, is particularly active in Gaza where it has fought against Israel alongside Hamas and PIJ militants".

• – WHAT IS LASAIR DHEARG? –

Lasair Dhearg means "red flame" and is a self-described socialist republican organisation.

It appears to be affiliated with the communist organisation the Connolly Youth Movement.

Founded in 2017, it claims to have activists in Scotland, England, Wales, Spain, Sweden, the USA, Australia, and elsewhere.

It gained media coverage in 2020 when its activists went around Belfast putting up unofficial road signs in place of the existing English-language ones, including a sign outside Queen's University Belfast rebranding it Mairead Farrell University (after the dead IRA icon).

Its most recent Easter commemoration was addressed by two former IRA convicts, and the group has denounced the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

In the wake of the Hamas attack on southern Israeli settlements on October 7, it had beamed the message "smash the Zionists" onto Belfast City Hall with a projector.

DUP MP Jim Shannon had objected and complained to police.

• Israel conflict latest: WATCH - Republican group Lasair Dhearg broadcasts the message 'smash the Zionists!' onto Belfast City Hall along with images of 'Palestinian resistance paragliders'

Lasair Dhearg's response was as follows: "We can confirm that we did indeed project images onto Belfast City Hall of Palestinian resistance fighters liberating their homeland from an illegal occupation.

"The conflict in Palestine will only be resolved with the destruction of the Zionist state, and Irish Republicans take this opportunity to send the Palestinian resistance our best regards and our full support."