Prominent Sydney restaurateur Alan Yazbek has been charged with knowingly displaying a Nazi symbol in public.

After Sunday’s pro-Palestine rallies, New South Wales police charged two men for allegedly displaying Nazi symbols.

Guardian Australia understands one of the men was Yazbek, 56, who was arrested for allegedly displaying a swastika symbol and was taken to Surry Hills police station before being charged. Yazbek is understood to be Jewish.

Photos from the 10,000-strong protest appear to show a man – reportedly Yazbek – holding a sign mirroring the Israeli flag, but with a swastika in place of the Star of David and the words “Stop Nazi Israel”.

Yazbek was charged under NSW laws with displaying the symbol “without excuse”. He will appear in Downing Centre local court on 24 October.

NSW banned the public display of Nazi symbols in 2022.

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Yazbek owns Nomad Group, whose flagship restaurant is Nomad in Surry Hills.

Known as Al, Yazbek founded the Nomad group with his wife, Rebecca Yazbek. They opened Nomad in Sydney in 2013, followed by Nomad Melbourne in 2021 and Reine & La Rue in the Melbourne CBD in 2023. A sibling Sydney restaurant, Beau, opened in 2023 but closed earlier this year.

“So many of us have family in the region,” Yazbek reportedly told the Daily Telegraph in a statement.

“Every loss of life is a tragedy. We’re in mourning.”

Guardian Australia has contacted Nomad Group for comment.

The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said this week that police should be able to shut down pro-Palestine protests because policing them has cost the state $5m this year. The rallies started after Hamas’s attacks on Israel on 7 October and Israel’s ongoing retaliation in Gaza.

Controversy around the rallies peaked ahead of the 7 October anniversary this week. NSW police took supreme court action to try to stop them, but reached an agreement with protesters allowing them to go ahead. Ultimately police said they were pleased with the behaviour of the 10,000-strong crowd.

On Sunday, police said they carried out a “high-visibility operation” at the authorised protest, with support from specialist groups including the riot squad, rescue and bomb disposal unit, and the dog and mounted unit.

Assistant commissioner Peter McKenna said they “worked closely with our partner agencies and protest organisers to execute a significant and robust police operation across the Sydney CBD, which evidently had a successful outcome”.

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