Across Britain, pro-Palestinian activists have stepped up action aimed at jamming up the Israeli war machine, which is pressing on with the regime’s genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.
Activists with Palestine Action, a UK-based pro-Palestinian protest network, barricaded the entrance to Israel’s largest weapons firm, Elbit Systems, by locking themselves together, British newspaper Morning Star reported on Wednesday.
BREAKING: Palestine Action are blockading the only entrance into the Bristol HQ of Israel’s largest weapons firm.
A genocide is underway which our government is assisting, so it’s up to the people to #ShutElbitDown!
Join us at Elbit, Aztec West, Patchway pic.twitter.com/PwL5gJEex4
— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) February 14, 2024
The company provides the Israeli military with drones, munitions, combat vehicles, missiles, and other types of weaponry.
“The majority of their arms are marketed as ‘battle-tested,’ meaning they have been deployed in bombardments against the Palestinian people,” the daily wrote.
A Palestine Action spokesperson said, “While Israeli weapons companies — which assist in occupying, displacing, and massacring the people in Gaza — operate on our doorstep, it’s up to the people to take direct action to shut Elbit down.”
“Every other method — including marches, petitions, and lobbying — has failed to end British complicity in the occupation.”
Activists from the group also drenched the Manchester offices of Bank of New York Mellon, an American banking and financial services corporation, in red paint, to symbolize the bank’s complicity in Palestinian bloodshed.
The Bank has invested over £10 million ($12.5 million) in Elbit Systems.
Nearly 28,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed since the Israeli regime launched its onslaught on Gaza in early October in response to an operation staged by the coastal sliver’s resistance movements against the occupied territories.
The protest came while the regime is intensifying its strikes against the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
More than 1.5 million Palestinians — above half of Gaza’s population — have fled to the city amid incessant Israeli bombardments elsewhere throughout the territory. Tel Aviv is, meanwhile, threatening to bring the city under an all-out ground invasion, which international humanitarian organizations have warned would spell an unspeakable catastrophe.
