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Over the past two days, Palestine Action have escalated the campaign against those facilitating the criminal operations of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons firm, by striking at their military electronics providers, accountants, and lobbyists across England.
Using repurposed fire extinguishers filled with blood-red paint and other tools, actionists smashed and sprayed sites owned by companies with direct ties to the weapons firm.
Palestine Action will continue to target any company that does business with Israel’s arms trade: if you’re with Elbit, there will be economic consequences.
Sunday 8th December The first action was carried out in the early hours of Sunday morning against Keysight Technologies Headquarters in Winnersh, Berkshire. Activists smashed through the building’s front and back windows to spray red paint inside the factory. At the rear, air conditioning units were also targeted, whilst vehicles used to make deliveries to Leicester were dismantled — costing the company thousands of pounds’ worth of damage and halting the transport of products. Keysight Technologies provide electronics for Elbit’s UAV Tactical Systems drone factory in Leicester, while also exporting these military electronics directly to Israel [1] as it perpetrates the genocide in Gaza.
Monday 9th December
The following day, actionists paid a visit to the offices of Edwards Accountants, Birmingham — the registered accountants for UAV Engines, U-TacS, and Elbit Systems UK broadly [1]. Activists sprayed the building in red paint, returning to the site previously-targeted for its role in “counting Elbit’s blood money.“
A simultaneous action took place targeting the London Headquarters of CMS Strategic. CMS are the registered lobbyists for Elbit Systems UK, who are one of their long-term clients [3]. Today, actionists paid a visit to their registered address at ‘Hoxton Mix’, spraying the site in red paint. CMS work to represent Elbit in Parliament [4], and undertake communications work for the Israeli weapons giant in Britain. CMS are the only remaining lobbyists for Elbit after APCO dropped them following a previous targeted action campaign by Palestine Action (5). As long as they remain a partner of the Israeli weapons firm, they’ll be a target.
With a string of campaigns against Elbit’s partners yielding success — recent victories include Barclays full divestment from Elbit Systems after a sustained series of covert actions [6], and a wide range of partners and suppliers, including most recently Hydrafeed, severing ties with the arms manufacturer as a result of direct action campaigns.
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 direct action against Elbit Systems’ British sites, intending for them all to be shut down and for the British government to end its complicity in Israeli apartheid, occupation, and genocide.
[1] https://caat.org.uk/data/exports-uk/licence-list?region=Israel&company=Keysight+Technologies+UK+Ltd
[2] https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2023/04/04/pro-palestine-campaigners-target-elbit-arms-firms-accountants/[3] https://orcl.my.site.com/CLR_Public_Profile?id=0014J00000V58PIQAZ
[4] https://x.com/CMSstrategic/status/1671431562561302528
[5] https://palestineaction.org/apco-drops-elbit/
[6] https://palestineaction.org/barclays-divest-elbit/