Pro-Palestinian activists have for the second day occupied the roof of Israel owned Elbit Ferranti arms factories in Oldham, in solidarity and in a peaceful protest of UK complicity in Israel’s human rights violations. vowing to stay up there “as long as it takes” to impose a two-way arms embargo between the UK and Israel so that “no more death can be inflicted on the Palestinian people”.
The activists from Manchester Palestine Action and the International Solidarity Movement, scaled the roof of the four storey building at 5 am yesterday morning, carrying banners with them that they draped from the roof edge of the five storey buildingn front of the building which read “UK Stop Arming Israel” and "Israel is killing protestors eery week," They were joined by placard- and banner-carrying activists at the front gates of the factory who chanted: “brick by brick, wall by wall, Israeli apartheid is going to fall”.
The campaigners acted in commemoration of the five-year anniversary of Operation Protective Edge (OPE). Israel attacked Gaza in July 2014 and killed over 2,200 Palestinians, primarily civilians; Israeli forces suffered 73 casualties, primarily soldiers.
The group say that over the last five years the UK has raised their arms sales to Israel and are calling for an arms embargo and the closure of all Elbit factories in the UK. A group of activists also entered the new, hi-tech, Discovery Industrial Park in Sandwich,Kent and headed towards Elbit’s, purpose-built Instro Precision factory, spraying painted slogans. They blockaded both of the gates to the factory and scaled a shipping container ,forcing the factory to close.
Elbit Systems is the largest privately owned Israeli arms manufacturer and is one of the largest exporter of drones in the world, bought the formerly British-owned Ferranti Technologies for £15 million in 2007. Elbit unmanned aircraft systems (aka drones) have been used extensively against Palestinians.
Elbit produces 85% of all drones (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, UAV) used by the Israeli army, including the Hermes 450 and 900 drones which Israeli forces can equip with two air to ground missiles, or targeting systems to mark a target for other aircraft to attack.
Amnesty International reported in 2009 that Israeli drones were identified as taking part in attacks that killed Palestinian civilians in Gaza. A confidential Israeli military police report leaked to The Intercept showed how the Israeli operators of a Hermes 450 were responsible for killing four Palestinian children, cousins aged 10-11, playing on a beach during Operation Protective Edge. They killed one child with the first missile fired, and then fired a second missile to kill the remaining three.
The company prides itself in testing their products "in the field" This testing amounts to the targeted killings of Palestinians, including many children, and to the extensie destruction of civil infrastructure in Gaza. A company also sordidly famous for providing cluster munitions banned by international law, and white phosphorus shells, both used against Palestinian civilian populations - a use also condemned by international law. Comments made by members of the Israeli military industrial complex lend weight to this claim. A brigadier general in the Israeli Army said at a convention on border control technology in Texas, “We have learned lots from Gaza,” he said. “It’s a great laboratory.”
Avner Benzaken, head of the Israeli army’s technology and logistics division, explaining the benefits of the occupation of Palestinian land, was reported as saying in Der Spiegel:
“If I develop a product and want to test it in the field, I only have to go five or 10 kilometres from my base and I can look and see what is happening with the equipment… I get feedback, so it makes the development process faster and much more efficient.”
After the 2014 OPE assault on Gaza, the term “combat-proven” was reported as being added to a military vehicle jointly manufactured by Elbit. During the first month of OPE in Gaza, Elbit’s shares increased by 6.1%.
There are many reports of the crashing of Elbit’s Skylark UAV during intelligence gathering operations in Gaza. The anxiety-inducing buzzing of Israeli military UAVs has become a permanent soundtrack to the lives of Palestinians in Gaza. The company has been one of the main providers of the electronic detection fence system to the Apartheid Wall in the occupied West Bank. Elbit, in cooperation with the Israeli military, developed a tunnel detection system installed as part of the matrix of technologies used to keep around 2 million Palestinians besieged in the open air prison that is the Gaza Strip.
Elbit Systems bought Israeli Military Industries (IMI) in 2018 for $495 million, which makes them the owner of the sole supplier of small-calibre ammunition to the Israeli army. Over the past year and a half, Israeli snipers have killed over 180 Palestinian protesters in the Great Return March in Gaza, including press, medics, disabled people and 57 children, yet the UK has approved some £14 million worth of arms sales during this period, according to the group.Israel’s military might, maintained by its arms trade with foreign governments like the UK, is a key factor in sustaining a much larger system of injustice and perpetual violence against the Palestinian people. That’s why justice campaigners here in the UK are increasing energy in their work to end the UK’s complicity in Israel’s abuse of Palestinian rights.
In 2017 the Campaign Against Arms Trade reported that the UK issued £221 million worth of arms licenses to defence companies exporting to Israel which makes Israel the eighth largest UK arms market, a huge increase on the previous year’s figure of £86m, itself a substantial rise on the £20m worth of arms licensed in 2015. In total, over the past five years, Israel has bought more than £350m worth of UK military hardware. The licences include categories of arms used in Israel’s attacks, such as sniper rifles, grenade launchers, surveillance drones and other equipment. While UK export controls are meant to prohibit the export of items that can be used in violation of human rights abroad, the UK Government insists it is confident that exports to Israel are not, while simultaneously claiming that it doesn’t track items after they’ve been sold. While a range of human rights organisations, the UN and even the International Criminal Court have expressed concern, the UK Government is digging in its heels and refusing to conduct any due diligence. As part of the wider Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, Palestine solidarity activists have called for the UK to end its extensive collaboration with the Israeli weapons industry and to institute a two-way arms embargo, at the same time, a range of human rights organisations, the UN and even the International Criminal Court have expressed concern, the UK Government unsurprisingly, the government has refused to listen, instead has not only taken no action, but has also made no effort to make Israel accountable for its increasing crimes and has thus been complicit in profitng off not only the desruction and death of innocent lives, but the intentional field testng of weaapons designed to terrify an entire populace.It’s not surprising then that campaigners are stepping up their efforts to stop ‘business as usual’ for the UK-Israel arms trade and they’re targeting different points in the chain of complicity.
There are many reports of the crashing of Elbit’s Skylark UAV during intelligence gathering operations in Gaza. The anxiety-inducing buzzing of Israeli military UAVs has become a permanent soundtrack to the lives of Palestinians in Gaza. The company has been one of the main providers of the electronic detection fence system to the Apartheid Wall in the occupied West Bank. Elbit, in cooperation with the Israeli military, developed a tunnel detection system installed as part of the matrix of technologies used to keep around 2 million Palestinians besieged in the open air prison that is the Gaza Strip. The company prides itself in testing their products "in the field" This testing amounts to the targeted killings of Palestinians, including many children, and to the extensie destruction of civil infrastructure in Gaza.
Elbit Systems has four subsidiaries in the UK; UAV Engines, Instro Precision, Ferranti Technologies and Elite KL. All have faced protests and in recent years. The Elbit-owned UAV Engines factory in Shenstone, Staffordshire, has been repeatedly targeted by activists, including protests, roof top occupations, and blockades at its gates, and was closed for nearly three days when it was similarly occupied in 2014 because it profits directly from the continual surveillance, control and violent repression of the Palestinian people.
The end of 2018 at least seemed to have marked a new turning point for the unscrupulous investments of banking and financial companies in the arms manufacturer Elbit Systems being excluded from pension and investment funds around the world over the company’s involvement in supplying surveillance systems and other technology to Israel’s Separation Wall and settlements in the West Bank. Elbit has also supplied surveillance technology for use along the US-Mexico’s border. In December 2018, following a campaign by a coalition of British NGOs against its investments, HSBC decided to divest from Elbit Systems due to its involvement in the production and commercialization of cluster munitions.
The recent action against Elbit has seen local residents rallying round in support with lots of interest from local school students, who can see the roof from their school , with some of the neighbouring residents coming out to respect the minute's silence that was held last night at the gate of the factory - together with those on the roof.
See pictures and a short video n https://twitter.com/ManPalestine (you can look at twitter feed whether or not you have a twitter account. )
or on facebook https://www.facebook.com/ManchesterPalestineAction/
As a key company in the Israeli arms industry, the presence of Elbit’s factories in the UK should not go unchallenged. By targeting the factories, campaigners are protesting the normalisation of militarism both in the UK and in Palestine. The Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions is clear that a suspension of ‘business as usual’ with Israel is necessary to achieve justice for Palestine, and campaigners are answering this call. Those who profiteer from suffering, violence and human rights violations like Elbit ,acting immoraly and in contravention of international law, should not be allowed to continue with business as usual. It is simply deplorable that Elbit can still operate their four factories in the UK, where they manufacture their weapons with such impunity. and enables the Israeli military to maintain its brutal oppression ad occupation of the Palestinians.
Solidarity and respect with the roof top activists, and to those that endorse the call of Palestinian civil society to impose a two-way military embargo on Israel and to all those that continue to support the legitimate fundamental rights of the Palestinian people.
