In recent days Palestine Action has targeted the logistics companies servicing the operations of Israel’s arms trade in Britain, as well as the biggest arms manufacturer – disrupting both their operations and exposing their roles in supporting the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
Palestine Action: targeting Israeli arms’ supply chain
First, Palestine Action targeted logistics companies belonging to Kuehne+Nagel (K+N) and Palletline on 17 January, as part of a widespread direct action campaign against Israel’s biggest weapons manufacturer, Elbit Systems, and the companies which facilitate their weapons manufacturing in Britain and their arms exports to Israel.
K+N’s Milton Keynes branch and their subsidiary in London, Nacaro cargo insurance, were targeted overnight. At the company’s Milton Keynes industrial site, which specialises in road transportation, activists sprayed the entire front of the building in blood-red paint and shattered windows.
BREAKING: The Milton Keynes branch of Kuehne+Nagel (@Kuehne_Nagel) was targeted overnight by Palestine Action.
The firm facilitate the genocide of the Palestinian people by transporting weaponry on behalf of Israel’s biggest arms producer, Elbit Systems. #ShutElbitDown pic.twitter.com/uunRLlIMZn
— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) January 17, 2024
In London, others took similar action against Nacora, leaving the office drenched in paint:
BREAKING: Palestine Action target Kuehne+Nagel's cargo insurance firm in London.
The company transport and provide security for Elbit's Israeli weapons which are marketed as "battle-tested" on the captive population of Gaza.#ShutElbitDown pic.twitter.com/ofJCYpCsiX
— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) January 17, 2024
In Scotland, activists from Palestine Action struck Palletline’s Glasgow site, breaking their windows and spray painting messages such as “Drop Elbit” and “Free Palestine”. Palletline frequently transport items in and out of Elbit’s drone factory, U-TacS, In Leicester:
BREAKING: Palestine Action target Palletline in Glasgow, as they regularly transport and deliver products for Israeli weapons firm Elbit Systems #ShutElbitDown@palletline pic.twitter.com/YR1thvSb46
— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) January 17, 2024
K+N provide transportation and logistics services for Elbit’s UAV Tactical Systems (U-TacS) factory in Leicester, facilitating the manufacture and delivery of Israeli drone technologies. Along with partnerships held with Elbit – the company supplying 85% of Israel’s drones and land based military equipment – K+N played a historical role in trafficking weapons to apartheid South Africa, bolstering the regime in the 1980s. According to the Anti-Apartheid Movement, these shipments were even sent to South Africa via Israel.
Then, Palestine Action targeted Elbit itself.
Elbit: still under pressure
The group was supported by the Bristol-based ‘Rise Up for Palestine’. They shut down the Israeli-owned Elbit weapons headquarters in Bristol on the morning of Thursday 18 January. Dozens from the local group surrounded four activists from Palestine Action who locked on to each other – making the blockade of the only entrance to Elbit’s HQ immovable:
BREAKING: We’ve SHUT DOWN the Israeli-owned Elbit weapons HQ in Bristol!
Dozens of locals are surrounding actionists who are locked on to each orher, making the blockade immovable.
Join us at Elbit, Aztec West, Patchway, Bristol #ShutElbitDown pic.twitter.com/y2J8fe28dP
— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) January 18, 2024
Elbit Systems UK operates across England and Wales and is owned by Israel’s largest weapons company. The Bristol location, which is leased from Somerset Council, is Elbit’s main operational facility.
This action happened while Israel is mounting a campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing, bombarding Gaza and killing over 25,000 Palestinians, injuring over 60,000 people and displacing over 1.9 million captive Palestinians.
In the past few days, Al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza, one of only 13 out of 35 remaining functioning hospitals, has come under attack by the Israeli army. Drones and quadcopters, most likely developed by Elbit, are being used to fire at anyone who enters or leaves the hospital.
The Israeli weapons firm openly talk of having “battle tested” its weapons, through Israel’s deployment of them against Palestinians, before these are then sold on the global market. In the current bombardment, Elbit’s new iron sting missiles and drone technologies are being used to massacre the Palestinian people.
‘End the complicity in genocide’
A Palestine Action spokesperson has said:
Disrupting Israel’s military supply chain through direct action and community mobilisation is a crucial and necessary tactic to deploy as our Palestinian siblings are under fire by Elbit’s weaponry. We do not stand for genocide enablers on our doorstep, and we’ve once again made it clear that Elbit is not welcome in Bristol or anywhere on British soil.
We will continue to rise up and take the power back into our own hands to shut down the companies arming Israel’s genocide of Palestine.
Moreover, companies assisting in the delivery and shipment of Israeli weaponry and essential equipment for Elbit, facilitate and profit from the genocide of the Palestinian people. Thus, Palestine Action remain determined to target all those who remain associated with Elbit
In the past 100 days over 25,000 Palestinians were killed, and for the last 75 years they’ve remained under an apartheid regime enabled by the British government. Whilst our pleas for sanctions on apartheid Israel fall on deaf ears, it’s up to ordinary people to take direct action and end the complicity in genocide.
Featured image via Palestine Action
