A PALESTINIAN flag was taken down from Tower Hamlets town hall in London yesterday after being up for less than 24 hours in solidarity with Gaza.

The Metropolitan Police were called to the town hall in the morning after anti-semitism awareness campaign YadbYad UK had issued a complaint on Twitter.

Addressing the Tower Hamlets Met from its official account, YadbYad claimed that raising the Palestinian flag was an “incitement and a danger to the Jewish community.”

But by the time the force arrived on the site the flag had already been ripped from its post by what the Tower Hamlet’s mayor’s office labelled “an act of perceived vandalism.”

Mayor Lutfur Rahman issued a statement later that day saying that he decided to fly the Palestinian banner “as a humanitarian gesture.

“The decision was taken after many local residents raised concerns at the recent escalation of violence in Gaza,” he said.

The mayor denied accusations of stirring up hatred towards the Jewish community and said that his message to locals had always been one of multicultural respect.

“Sometimes politicians need to take a stand in the face of injustice and needless suffering and that is what I am doing,” concluded Mr Rahman.

Tower Hamlets was not alone in raising the Palestinian flag, following in the footsteps of Preston and Bradford town halls.