Early on Thursday 6 February, Palestine Action took action at the Manchester offices of CDW 17 Quay Street. It was over the company’s complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
CDW: complicit in genocide
Palestine Action targeted the firm – smashing the front door, breaking windows, and covering the building in symbolic blood-red paint:
“CDW drop Elbit” was spray-painted on the entrance of the ‘Quoin’ City Centre Workspace, which contains the CDW offices:
CDW provide Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons firm, with supply chain management, IT solutions, cyber security, and eProcurement services. By doing so, they make the manufacture of weapons, used to kill Palestinian children, more efficient, allowing Elbit, and Israel, to increase the slaughter.
Palestine Action have previously targeted CDW’s offices to try and prevent the firm from providing logistical support to a company – Elbit – who are heavily involved in genocide. The Manchester CDW offices were blockaded by Palestine Action in July 2024, and the Peterborough offices of CDW have been targeted repeatedly.
Palestine Action will not stop
The action took place at a time when heavy-handed policing is being used to try and intimidate pro-Palestine activists, and when Keir Starmer’s repressive government are attempting to terrorise and intimidate Palestine Action through the misuse of supposed anti-terror legislation in the Filton18 case, and the imprisonment without trial of its members.
There are currently 21 Palestine Action political prisoners locked up in British prisons, including the Filton 18, who will have an opportunity to challenge the terrorism slur at a hearing on 27 March at the Old Bailey. There is growing international outrage about these abuses, including condemnation by the United Nations.
As well as continuing to target the weapons companies – such as Elbit – directly supplying weapons to the Israeli forces, Palestine Action’s campaign extends to the companies who aid and support them in their bloody business, such as Allianz and Aviva, Elbit’s insurers, Barclay’s Bank, Edwards Aldridge accountants, and lobbying firms APCO and CMS.
As Palestine Action apply more pressure, a number of companies have already cut their ties with Elbit, such as APCO and Barclay’s.
A spokesperson for Palestine Action said:
All the companies doing bloody business, with the weapons firms fuelling the slaughter in Gaza and the West Bank, should expect to be targeted by Palestine Action. They would be well-advised to cut their ties.
We will not be intimidated by attempts to criminalise and terrorise us. Terrorists don’t throw paint, they drop bombs on innocent people. It is Netanyahu, Trump, Starmer, and Lammy, who are the criminals and terrorists, not the activists putting their liberty at risk to disrupt the slaughter taking place in Palestine and Lebanon.
Featured image and additional images via Milo Chandler
