Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay said: “There certainly were people masked up and there were certainly people wearing surgical gloves … There was some planning around this event, it just didn’t spirit itself out of the ether.”…

The Belfast mayor, Niall Ó Donnghaile, a councillor based in the Short Strand area, said a number of Catholic residents had been injured, including one man who was knocked unconscious when he was hit with a brick. “There is no doubt that this was unprovoked and was a carefully orchestrated and planned attack on the area. Homes have been attacked with petrol bombs and paint bombs, bricks, golf balls. I saw what happened.”