A Labour councillor in Preston has been suspended by the party after sharing a social media post justifying the terrorist murder of Israeli Jews.

Councillor Ismail Bax, who represents the Lancashire city’s Deepdale ward, used his Twitter account to re-post comments about the fatal shooting of seven people outside a synagogue in east Jerusalem in January.

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Councillor Ismail Bax celebrating his win as a Labour party councillor (Lancashire Evening Post)

The post read: “You terrorise a people. You strangle them. You destroy their homes. You occupy their lands. You murder their children. You bomb their hospitals. You restrict their movements. You blockade them. How will they react?”

The Labour investigation was triggered by a local Jewish resident, who said it “doesn’t feel right” for a councillor to be endorsing such statements.

Interviewed by the Lancashire Evening Post, she reportedly said: “When a councillor retweets something justifying the murder of these Jews…it’s not just offensive, it’s downright scary for us.”

She added that she and other members of Preston’s small Jewish community were too fearful to do anything that would “openly” identify their religion, saying: “We have a rabbi and we get together, but we would never go to the Flag Market and celebrate, say, Chanukah.

“I’m not out here to cause any harm to anyone — I’m not somebody who cancels people. I just felt that retweeting that post was justification [of the attack].”

She also said there was a strong pro-Palestinian movement in Preston “and you have to really find a balance between being pro-Palestinian and not being antisemitic — and there is a way of doing it.”

The council’s Labour leader, Matthew Brown, said his group had recently taken antisemitism training and said the local authority had also held “quite extensive dialogue with the Jewish community”.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “All complaints are taken seriously and assessed in accordance with our rules and procedures.” Cllr Bax has been approached for comment.