This is a press release from Palestine Action
Palestine Action activists stormed the Elbit Offices today in central London, using civil disobedience tactics calling for the shut down of their HQ office in Holborn. Tactics such as paint throwing, graffiti, protesting and stencils were used targeting both the ground floor reception and the Elbit offices themselves. The call of the activists themselves was “Shut Elbit Down” painted along their banner, an Israeli arms company operating throughout the UK that supplies the IDF (Israeli Defence Force). Statements such as “Shut Elbit Down”, “Tested in Palestine, used in Kashmir” & “we will be back” were plastered on the walls with graffiti, alongside chants from the activists themselves stating “your profits, are covered, in Palestinians blood!”.
An activist from Palestine Action dressed up as a courier with a box full of paint in order to entice the security guard to open the door, with which the other activists used this distraction to storm into the reception that were blocked off by large doors from the street. After the floor was covered with paint Three activists remained downstairs displaying their banner “Shut Elbit Down” and chanting, while three other activists made it up to the office blocks 6th floor, which holds the Elbit offices being protested, in which the outside were also covered with paint and graffiti.
At the moment of the action, activists also handed in letters directed to the landlord of the building where the action took place, calling for the landlord to kick Elbit Systems out of London.
Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest private arms company, marketing their weapons as “field tested” on Palestinian civilians, notably Gazans who are mostly children and refugees. Elbit supplied 85% of the drones used in the invasion of Gaza in 2014, where over 2000 Palestinians, 500 of them children were killed in only 50 days. Elbit systems have ten sites across the UK. Palestine Action is focusing on targeting all of their sites until they are shut down.
Following the action activists stated:
“while our government continues to turn a blind-eye to Elbit Systems continuing to break the law in order to manufacturing weapons for Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people, we too will continue to disrupt and break the law for the sake of human rights, justice and dignity. We will not stop, and we will continue to escalate our actions until Elbit Systems complicity in war crimes and apartheid here in the UK are shut down.”
