Images & videos of both actions, free to reproduce, can be accessed via Dropbox
Escalating actions have this morning struck deep at Israel’s arms trade in Britain, as Palestine Action continue to take direct action against the manufacture of, or investment in, arms used for genocide of the Palestinians.
In Kent, the ‘Instro Precision’ factory, used in the manufacture of scopes, sights, and targeting equipment for Israel’s exterminationist military, has been stormed and dismantled. In London, the offices of ‘Scotiabank’, major investors in Israeli military production, have been blockaded as 10 activists lock-on at each entrance – shutting the bank’s HQ down and demanding it cease its facilitation of genocide.
At Instro Precision, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems, tens of activists cut through three security fences, breaching the high-security premises at Sandwich’s Discovery Park. Some laid ‘stinger’ spike strips at the roads leading to the factory to prevent any vehicular entry, while a smaller contingent broke into the factory itself. Once inside, the activists begun dismantling technology, machinery and parts used to produce weapons of war, in order to prevent the export of arms to Gaza and their use in massacres of the Palestinians.
Instro manufactures military-grade electro-optical equipment, used for target acquisition and surveillance, their products ‘likely to be used in ground operations in Gaza’ [1], i.e. by the Israeli snipers terrorising Palestinian civilians. While the company boasts of its supplies to the British Ministry of Defence, it is also a major exporter to Israel of ‘ML5’ category weapons sight and target acquisition products – being granted over 50 such export licenses in a five-year period [2].
In London, meanwhile, a group of 10 activists are blockading the offices of Scotiabank, the largest foreign investor in Elbit Systems. Activists have used lock-on devices to affix themselves to each other at all entrances into Scotiabank’s offices, spraying the building red to mark it with a symbol of the Palestinian bloodshed from which Scotiabank profits.
The Canadian bank and its subsidiaries had, until recently, $500m invested in the company – assets described by analysts as “unusually large for a bank of its size”, inexplicable unless the fund manager has “some sort of strategic interest” in Elbit [3].
Under pressure from Palestine Action in Britain, who have taken a number of actions against Scotiabank [4, 5], and from activists mobilising at the bank’s Canadian branches [6], it emerged last month that Scotiabank, or the ‘Bank of Nova Scotia’, itself has completely divested from Elbit [7]. Scotiabank’s subsidiary asset management fund, the wholly owned ‘1832 Asset Management’, however, still holds over $230m in Elbit shares [8], which would still render the parent company, Scotiabank, as Elbit’s largest foreign shareholder.
This action comes the week after 20 Barclays branches were smashed and sprayed red by activists demanding they divest from their shareholdings in genocide-fuelling companies [9].
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
If you would like any further information on Palestine action or want to interview a spokesperson on this topic, 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] https://caat.org.uk/app/uploads/2023/11/Fact-sheet-re-Gaza-2023-11-14.pdf
[2] https://caat.org.uk/data/exports-uk/licence-list?region=Israel&company=Elbit+Systems
[3] https://theintercept.com/2023/04/06/israel-arms-scotiabank-elbit-david-fingold/
[4] https://freedomnews.org.uk/2024/01/17/palestine-action-strike-israeli-weapons-trade-facilitators/
[5] https://www.instagram.com/pal_action/p/C2HlHSzNZIK/?img_index=1
[6] https://www.instagram.com/vpalestinet/reel/C50W4yeC_Uv/
[7] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/scotiabanks-fund-unit-halved-stake-israeli-weapons-maker-elbit-filing-shows-2024-05-14/
[8] https://fintel.io/so/il/eslt/1832-asset-management
[9] https://freedomnews.org.uk/2024/06/10/shut-the-system-and-palestine-action-smash-20-barclays-branches/