PRESS RELEASE, 12/09/24
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Palestine Action target over 10 Barclays sites across the country
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Overnight, Palestine Action have targeted more than ten Barclays sites including branches, call centres and offices. The bank has been marked with symbols of their complicity in the genocide of Palestinians.
Bank premises from Edinburgh to Kent have had their windows smashed, and covered in blood-red paint, in actions which Palestine Action have vowed will continue until Barclays cease their investments in Elbit Systems – Israel’s largest weapons firm, and Palestine Action’s primary target. These actions follow those of June 2024, when nearly 20 branches of the arms-investing bank were smashed [1].
Confirmed targeted sites include:
- Barclays Wealth & Investment Management, 3 Hardman St, Manchester
- Barclays Bank, Royal Tunbridge Wells, TN1 2TB
- Barclays Bank, Islington, London, N1 8EH
- Barclays Bank, Whitechapel, E1 1BJ
- Barclays Bank, Mayfair, W1J 8NL
- Barclays Bank, Hammersmith, W6 9HY
- Barclays Bank, Oxford, OX1 3HB
- Barclays Bank, Edinburgh, EH2 2AN
- Barclays Bank, London, E6 2HW
- Barclays Wealth & Investment Management, Edinburgh, EH3 7LU
- Barclays Centre, Liverpool, L7 9PQ
11 months into the genocide in Gaza, in which Elbit plays a central role, Barclays still holds Elbit shares. In fact, it has more than tripled its Elbit shareholdings [2]. Elbit provides 85% of Israel’s military drone fleet and land-based equipment, as well as bombs, missiles and other weaponry [3], which it markets as “battle-tested” [4] after they are developed during bombardments in occupied Palestine. Additionally, Barclays holds over £2billion of investments, and underwrite loans worth £6billion, in other firms involved in arming Israel [5].
When Barclays last saw nationwide resistance, its CEO, CS Venkatakrishnan, claimed that the the bank is “deeply sympathetic about the overall suffering in the region“, but pleaded that Barclays’ property ought to be protected [6]. Palestine Action state in response:
“Barclays’ investments are contributing to the wholesale destruction of Gaza, the erasure of Palestinian life and property.
These banks choose to invest in manufacturers of genocide. They have evaluated that the continued returns on investment generated by Elbit Systems and Israel’s war machine are worth more than the moral or political cost of dealing in war crimes.
Palestine Action will continue to take action to re-calibrate that cost-benefit analysis: reducing the profitability of any operation doing business with Israel’s arms trade.”
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
If you would like any further information on Palestine action, please contact media@palestineaction.org
Palestine Action is a direct-action network of groups and individuals formed with the mandate of taking action against the sites of Elbit Systems and other companies complicit in Israeli apartheid, calling for all such sites to be shut down.
[1] Freedom Press, 11th June 2024, Shut the System and Palestine Action smash 20 Barclays branches
[2] Campaign Against Arms Trade, May 2024, Barclays: Arming Israel’s Apartheid and Genocide
[3] Investigate AFSC (American Friends Service Committee): Elbit Systems https://investigate.afsc.org/company/elbit-systems
[4] WhoProfits Research Centre: Elbit Systems https://www.whoprofits.org/companies/company/3794
[5] Campaign Against Arms Trade, May 2024, Barclays: Arming Israel’s Apartheid and Genocide
[6] CS Venkatakrishnan, 14th June 2024, ‘Attacks on Barclays put our staff at risk and are not justified by Middle East events’, The Guardian