London’s Brent Council has come under fire for twinning with Nablus despite an active Hamas presence there.
Brent Council voted to approve the twinning agreement during a meeting on May 14, 2025.
“We affirm our commitment to solidarity, we’ll build real partnerships, here and in Nablus,” Brent Councillor Ihtesham Afzal said at the time. “This is for the children who grow up with the weight of occupation,” he added.
The partnership was signed at a ceremony at the Novotel London Wembley this past January 10. Representatives of Brent Council can be seen wearing keffiyehs while signing in a video viewed by The Jerusalem Post.
Dr. Nehad Khanfar, a leading figure in the Palestinian community in Britain, signed on behalf of Nablus, The Times reported.
“Some dreams have become closer to reality,” according to social-media posts attributed to Khanfar that were published on October 7, 2023, the day of the October 7 massacre.
When confronted with screenshots of the posts, he accused The Times of a “deliberate and malicious misinterpretation of my words, which have been stripped of their linguistic, cultural, and poetic context to construct a narrative that is entirely false.”
'Not a political statement of any kind'
The twinning agreement, “from our perspective, is a community-led initiative focused on cultural, educational, and humanitarian exchange – not a political statement of any kind,” Khanfar said.
Conservative MP Bob Blackman, whose constituency covers parts of Brent, said the decision was “deeply ill-judged.”
“Not only was it an absurd waste of taxpayers’ money and council time, but affiliates our area with a city infamous for its links to Palestinian terrorism,” he told The Times. “The twinning should be reviewed and ties severed.”
The Jewish Leadership Council said: “Since October 7, we have seen a desperate fracturing of community cohesion alongside a sharp rise in anti-Jewish hatred. Choosing to twin with such a city cannot be divorced from the message it sends to the local Jewish community.”
Carol Foster, who is affiliated with the IJAN (International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network) and the Brent Jewish Network, praised the twinning. So did a group of Holocaust survivors, including Dr. Agnes Kory.
Brent & Harrow Palestine Solidarity Campaign said the twinning had been supported and actively campaigned for by many Brent Jewish residents and local Jewish groups, including the Brent Jewish Network, which attended the signing ceremony.
The Brent Jewish Network is a pro-Palestine group formed in late 2023.
“Expressing solidarity and recognizing the rights of Palestinians to continue to live in their own land in no way threatens the safety of Brent or British Jews,” Jewish Voice for Liberation’s Mike Cushman said. “Any risk comes from the false assertions that Jews as Jews are comfortable with Israel’s breaches of international law,” he added.
Hamas has long maintained an active presence in Nablus. The city functions as a hub for terrorist activity and recruiting in the northern West Bank.
In 2023, a Hamas-affiliated list won the election for the Student Council at An-Najah University in Nablus, which was seen by Palestinians as a major blow to the ruling Fatah faction headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.