Green Party investigates councillor who shouted 'Allahu Akbar' after election

The Telegraph understands that Mr Ali has not been suspended by the Greens and will continue representing the party as a councillor during the investigation.

In videos posted to his social media channels following the Oct 7 attacks, the councillor said Israel would "use the pretext of the fightback by Hamas fighters or supposedly Hamas fighters this morning" to launch attacks on civilians.

Calling Gaza the "biggest concentration camp the world has ever seen", he went on to urge viewers to "support the right of indigenous people to fight back" and described Israel as a "settler, colonial, occupier" which had tried to "erase the legitimacy of a native population".

"They are not victims, they are occupiers, they are colonialists, they are European colonialists," he said. "It's one of the last European colonies in the world, and that's why the European people don't want to let it go. They use the weapon of anti-Semitism so effectively that anyone who criticises Israel is labelled as anti-Semitic."

It also emerged that Mr Ali had criticised Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch, the JewishUniversity of Leeds chaplain who went into hiding after receiving online threats from pro-Palestinian activists because he had served with the Israel Defense Forces.

He said of Rabbi Deutsch in a separate video: "This is Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch. This creep, that's the only way I can describe him politely, is someone who went from Leeds to Israel to kill children and women and everyone else over there."

Mr Ali made a number of pro-Palestinian posts on his Facebook page during the course of the campaign, including videos and photographs in which he wore a beanie hat bearing the Palestinian flag.

The Green Party called for an "immediate end" to the violence in Gaza two days after the Oct 7 attacks, when it urged Israel to urge its "illegal occupation".

In a separate statement last month, Carla Denyer, the co-leader of the Greens, accused the British Government of being "complicit in the deadly assault on Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces".

The Green Party and dozens of independent candidates look to have benefited from a pro-Palestinian stance at Thursday's elections, while support for Labour among Muslim voters fell after Sir Keir Starmer initially refused to call for an immediate ceasefire last autumn.

Sir Keir's party lost two councillors in Rochdale to George Galloway's Workers Party of Britain. Mr Galloway was elected MP for the Lancashire town at the end of February having run on a campaign on pro-Gaza and anti-Labour ticket.

Mr Ali was approached for comment. He has previously said: "I have received hundreds of death threats from those on the far-Right and supporters of what the Israeli government is doing, many of which have been reported to the police. 

"I understand very well the emotional turmoil threats of violence can have and would not wish that on others... the video in question has absolutely nothing to do with violence."