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A Newry City councillor has been critical of a council’s two year delay in twinning with a Palestinian city in a sign of solidarity over the Gaza conflict.
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A Newry, Mourne and Down District Council motion was agreed in 2024 to twin with Ramallah.
The chamber heard that the Middle East community is said to be ready and waiting on the local authority, however a potential policy issue could be holding back council efforts.
Councillor Killian Feehan said:”I don’t really take any good pleasure in having to flag this, but the proposal to twin Newry with Ramallah, it’s about two years in the works now.
“The council has done very little on it, to be perfectly honest.
“I actually had to make contact with the team on the far side of the proposal myself and they hadn’t heard anything from our council.
“But I got engaged with them and got them to a stage now where they’re willing to have a conversation with us.
“I had flagged that with both the council CEO and senior management in August.
“I was told that there was a potential issue with policy.
“So, I’ve asked for that policy so that we can make that assessment ourselves.”
At the time of the council motion in March 2024, over 30,000 Palestinians had been killed during the conflict with Israel following the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas when 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
The Palestinian fatality figure is now estimated to be over 75k by the Gaza Health Ministry.
The twinning motion had received broad support in chambers with 29 elected reps in favour and all unionists voting against it apart from the DUP’s Henry Reilly who abstained.
Councillor Feehan added:”It is frustrating that the progress has been so slow on it. I would really like to see this picked up.
“It is all set and ready to be done as a proposal that was adopted by the council.
“It’s something that we have asked for the officers to do and I would really encourage them to get on with it and get it done.”
