Labor backbench and Greens MPs say the police response to a protest against the Israeli president’s visit on Monday evening was “wildly inappropriate” – but the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, has defended police actions, saying they were “put in an impossible situation”.

The state Greens MP Abigail Boyd alleged she was “targeted and attacked” by police during the rally, injuring her wrist and chin.

“I feel quite naive, but I didn’t know that this was what police could do in our state,” she told ABC radio on Tuesday morning. “I feel just absolutely shocked.”

NSW police pepper-sprayed protesters at the Sydney rally to Town Hall opposing Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s visit. They arrested 27 people and said 10 officers were assaulted though none of those assaults were serious.

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Minns has defended the police response as well as the controversial protest restrictions that a member of his government said had created a “pressure cooker” situation.

He told Channel Nine’s Today program on Tuesday morning that police were “put in an impossible situation last night” after protesters defied a protest restriction preventing them from marching to NSW parliament introduced after the Bondi attack. The protest went ahead despite a NSW supreme court case in which the Palestine Action Group failed to overturn additional sweeping powers handed to police for the duration of Herzog’s visit.

Minns said police had done “everything possible to avoid that confrontation, starting last week when they begged protest organisers to have it in Hyde Park, where it was safe and a march could take place”.

“What we can say today, what we couldn’t say yesterday, is that we had 7,000 Jewish mourners in the same city at the same time, and police had to keep those two groups apart.”

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said he was “devastated” by the scenes but said they had “undermined” the protesters’ cause and the Israeli president’s visit was appropriate.

“People should be able to express their views peacefully but the police were very clear about the routes that were required if people wanted to march to go a particular route, and to ensure that this was done peacefully,” he told Triple M Hobart.

Josh Lees, an organiser for Palestine Action Group, said Monday night’s events were the worst he had seen after attending many pro-Palestine events in recent years. He told ABC Radio Sydney that if police had facilitated a peaceful march, which “we called for all along”, then “all of this could have been avoided”.

Palestine Action Group plans to hold another event on Tuesday evening at NSW police’s station in Surry Hills to demand all charges against protesters on Monday be dropped and to demand accountability for officers’ behaviour.

“We could have marched [to parliament] and then dispersed,” Lees said. “Instead, police kettled people into that area outside Town Hall and then charged them repeatedly. This is the worst I’ver seen, where police were absolutely off the chain.

“They just kept charging, pepper-spraying everyone. People who had been pepper-sprayed, who were on the ground, were then trampled by police.”

One incident captured in footage from the scene appeared to showed a number of men kneeling to pray before some were dragged away by police. Asked about the video on Tuesday, Minns rejected the idea it showed police were disproportionately focused on the Muslim community.

“The context is incredibly important, and the context here was in the middle of what was a riotous behaviour,” he said. “Now I’m not suggesting that those who are engaging in prayer were conducting that behaviour but police are left with a difficult situation when they’ve asked people to clear the area.”

NSW Greens MP and the party’s justice spokesperson, Sue Higginson, said she would be referring “wildly inappropriate” police actions, which she alleged included police horse charges, “unprovoked assault and severe police violence”, to the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.

“I saw with my own eyes something I had hoped to never see, but the video footage that is spreading across social media is all the evidence that any of us need to see the descent of NSW into a police state.”

NSW police assistant commissioner Peter McKenna vehemently defended the actions of the police, saying officers had showed restraint against protesters for more than an hour before the clashes began.

“Every police officer will have to justify their own actions, there’s no doubt about that,” McKenna told ABC Radio Sydney. “But what I’ll say is what happened last night was one of the most precarious, volatile situations I have seen … The level of aggression and violence by the crowd was palpable.”

He was asked about video footage that appears to show officers punching a man, and the video of the men praying. McKenna said people should not take “snippets” of footage out of context.

“If their decisions were right, wrong or otherwise, I’m not going to sit here and judge them this morning, because I saw what they were up against last night,” he said.

The federal minister for social services and MP for Sydney, Tanya Plibersek, said videos shared on social media of the protest were “very concerning”.

“I expect they’ll be investigated,” she told the ABC. Plibersek said protesters “absolutely” had the right to protest but should have heeded police advice not to seek to march to NSW parliament.

Labor NSW upper house member Stephen Lawrence, one of four backbench government MPs to support or attend the rally, said the state should have facilitated a peaceful protest.

He was among those who questioned the linkage of the Bondi attack and pro-Palestine protests, after the extension of a public assembly restriction declaration this month and the “major event” powers unsuccessfully challenged at the supreme court.

“We’ve removed that capacity to have those sorts of processions and protests authorised,” he said. “This was a pretty much inevitable consequence of that.

“I don’t like to be right about a thing like this but it’s been repeatedly said in parliament, and in different places, we’re basically creating a pressure cooker and we saw that last night.”