Palestinian flag could fly during twin city visit

Oxford City Council has not previously flown the Palestinian flag

Oxford Town Hall could fly the Palestinian flag during an expected visit from the mayor of a city in the West Bank.

The mayor of Ramallah has been invited to visit Oxford in December by the city council after the cities twinned in 2019.

When asked at a council meeting, the authority's leader Susan Brown said the Palestinian flag would be flown if the visit went ahead.

It would mark the first time Oxford City Council has displayed either the Palestinian or Israeli flags.

Councillor Saj Malik criticised Ms Brown for only pledging to raise the flag on the condition the mayor came to Oxford.

"We have [flown a flag] for Ukraine, rightly so. We have a friendship with Ramallah, rightly so," he said.

"Here we are talking about humanity – why don't we fly the flag of Palestine in solidarity with our twin city?"

Oxford twinned with Ramallah in 2019

Ms Brown responded by suggesting Mr Malik "hasn't actually read my response" - which said the council would raise the flag if the mayor of Ramallah visited.

Ramallah is one of seven cities with which Oxford is twinned - others include Bonn in Germany, Grenoble in France and Padua in Italy.

It is not always a given the city council fly the flag belonging to the twin city when a representative comes to Oxford.

If the upcoming visit goes ahead, it would be the first time the mayor of Ramallah would have visited the city.

The council has passed a number of motions in support of the Palestinian cause, including the call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza in November 2023.

It also called for the council to stop investing in and trading with companies which are implicated in state violence and oppression, war and occupation, as well as grave violations of human rights.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others as hostages.

At least 67,173 have been killed by Israeli military operations in Gaza since then, including 20,179 children, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. Its figures are seen as reliable by the UN and other international bodies, although Israel disputes them.