Four members of Palestine Action activists were arrested on Saturday at the mass protest to shut down Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems, at their London office. They were released on Sunday, pending investigation.
During the protest, the direct action group, campaigning against Israel’s brutal occupation, splashed paint along the entrance of the Elbit office.
Groups of protesters held banners with statements such as “Stop Arming Israel”, “Elbit Arms: Tested on Children”. A number of pro-Palestine groups including cyclists from the Big Ride, members of Football Against Apartheid and the Jewish Anti-Zionist network were amongst the demonstrators.
Britain's complicity in Israel's war crimes on full show at 77 Kingsway, WC2B 6SR | activists pledge to shut the killers down #ShutElbitDown https://t.co/NcJTlGLaYF
— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) September 6, 2020
Members of the British public, unaware that an Israeli arms manufacturer was housed in the building also offered their support for the protestors.
The activists’ group say that they are “determined to take action until there is no place for a company developing and selling their weapons off the deaths of so many Palestinians.”
Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest private arms company, marketing its weapons as “field-tested” on Palestinian civilians, notably Gazans who are mostly children and refugees. Elbit supplied 85 percent of the drones used in the invasion of Gaza in 2014, where over 2,200 Palestinians, 500 of them children, were killed in only 50 days. Elbit systems have ten sites across the UK.
'Combat Proven': Israel's thriving war business in Europe… https://t.co/CMHyDi2h6y
— Media Review Network (@MRN1SA) January 16, 2019
Palestine Action has made the Israeli arms manufacturer one of its main targets until the office is shut down. launched just over a month ago, the group has targeted several Elbit sites across the country and mobilized activists across the UK to ramp up the campaign to shut Elbit down.
“Israel is the seventh largest arms exporter in the world, and is emerging as a leader in the global export of aerial drones,” wrote Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud in a recent article.
“The Israeli brand is particularly popular because its technology is ‘combat-proven’. Indeed, the Israeli military has had ample opportunity to test its diverse weapons and security cache against Palestinian civilians,” Rubeo and Baroud added.
(Palestine Chronicle, MEMO, Social Media)
