Author: The Aftershock

PRESS RELEASE – 24th November 2025

VICTORY FOR DIRECT ACTION, AS EDWARDS ACCOUNTANTS DROP ELBIT SYSTEMS

For Immediate Release

Images free to use without credit: https://drive.proton.me/urls/VR8EGAZJNW#oaH5QsscWHKJ

Pro-Palestine Activists are claiming a substantial victory, after Edwards Chartered Accountants, who have being doing Elbit Systems‘ books since 2015, dramatically resigned.

In letters published by Companies House, dated 27th October 2025, Edwards announced that they were severing ties with the Israeli weapons giant, which supplies more than 85% of Israel’s killer drones, and land-based military equipment. The letters were sent to Elbit Systems UK, and their subsidiary arms manufacturers, based in Britain, UAV Engines, Instro Precision, and UAV Tactical Systtems. In a report, issued on June 30th, Francesca Albanese, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, detailed how Elbit Systems had reaped huge profits from the Genocide in Gaza 

Edwards, based at 34 High Street, Aldridge, Walsall, West Midlands, have been acting as auditors and accountants to the weapons-makers for a decade, but have now ended the relationship. Prior to this, the company were considered complicit in the Gaza Genocide by pro-Palestine campaigners, and targeted for direct action on a number of occasions. On October 16th, 2 activists from People Against Genocide scaled the roof of Edwards’ Walsall offices, where they hung anti-Genocide banners and Palestinian flags. Edwards were forced to shut up shop for the day. 

Previously, Palestine Action had repeatedly targeted the firm by damaging the premises, before the group was proscribed on July 5th.

In a statement issued at the time, People Against Genocide said: “By book-keeping for Israel’s biggest weapons producer, Edwards accountants is directly profiting from the continued oppression and mass murder of the Palestinian people. Edwards clients, Elbit Systems, continue to use the Palestinians as test subjects for their weaponry, so that they can market their weapons as “battle-tested”. Elbit’s business of death would not be able to operate in Britain without firms such as Edwards accountants directly enabling them. Today, we’re here to shut down Edwards accountants, to demand they stop working with Elbit Systems.”

“As activists opposed to Israel’s genocidal slaughter, it is not a time to stand down, but to escalate in support of international law, targeting all those companies with Palestinian blood on their hands. So long as Edwards continue to assist Elbit, and to profit from genocide, they will be a legitimate target for direct action. Free Palestine.”

The action appears to have been the final straw for the accounting firm, as just over a week later, they resigned from their contract with Elbit and its subsidiary manufacturers, severing all ties with the Israeli weapons makers. 

A spokesperson for People Against Genocide said, “This is a major victory in the struggle against Elbit Systems, and leaves the Israeli arms company without their long standing accountants to count their blood money. If Edwards are replaced, we will know. So long as Elbit continues to build weapons in Britain, that are sent to murder Palestinians, we will use direct action to shut them, and all who are complicit with them, down. Free Palestine!”

ENDS

NOTES

*The Aftershock is a publisher and media distributor of actions for Palestine, which operates independently from protest groups.

‘For the revolutionary fugitive, the choice between fight or flight is false; a proper escape is already a counterattack.’ 

– Dylan Saba

This weekend, HMP Wandsworth sounded the alarms in yet another embarrassment for the Prisons and Probation service. Shortly afterwards, the media reported that a ‘manhunt’ was on, with a Sky News reporting that Sean Middlebrough, a Palestine Action protestor, had ‘absconded’ from HMP Wandsworth this weekend just passed. The 32 year old protestor was one of the Filton24, a group of direct action protestors who have been held in remand without trial through the abuse of repressive anti-terror laws. In a statement to Electronic Intifada, Middlebrough laid out his reasons for becoming a fugitive escaping state repression:

“I’m not on the run. I am merely being sensible, refusing to be held as a prisoner of war of Israel, in a British prison. Outrageously, twenty three of my heroic and honorable co-defendants remain in prison following our kidnapping by counter-terrorism police. We were raided, our families detained, and guns pointed at our heads despite not being charged with any terror offenses. The UN has condemned our treatment as likely “enforced disappearance”, while my co-defendants are indefinitely detained before facing trial.

We are not terrorists. I oppose terror and tyranny in all forms. When we witness British backed genocide of the Palestinian people, it is our moral and legal duty to act against it. This is why some of my comrades in the Filton 24 are in active hunger strike for immediate bail and a fair trial; we can resist injustice wherever we are. They are the best of us, and we must rally behind their fight. While I am free, I will raise their voice beyond the prison walls, for everything that they are and they stand for – a FREE PALESTINE!“

In the article mentioned above, and in other reports by members of the Murdoch mob and their fellow reactionary rags, there are several mistakes and misrepresentations of both Middlebrough and Palestine Action. This biased coverage and shoddy work for the purpose of manufacturing consent for fascist repression is what many have come to expect from British journalism, but nevertheless we at the Aftershock feel it’s necessary to do their job for them and correct the record. 

First of all, Sean Middlebrough is not charged with a plot against the London Stock Exchange. He was charged and remanded for a charge of conspiracy to cause public nuisance, for allegedly plotting to shut down the London Stock Exchange in January 2024, which led to him being remanded. He was released shortly after on bail and his charges were dropped. That was the second time he had been remanded to prison on charges that were later dropped.

Through this seemingly small mistake, journalists give themselves licence to miss out further crucial context. Middlebrough was on remand for a third time since November 2024, in connection to an action at Elbit’s weapons facility in Filton in August 2024. Himself and many others were violently raided and arrested, and during the raid his family members were also cuffed. Some of the now Filton24 were also raided at gun point. Whilst the Filton24 do not face terrorism charges, the CPS say that their charges have a “terrorism connection”, which means if convicted, the Judge can increase their sentence and they’ll continue to face harsher conditions. This is the first case in which direct action activists faced accusations of terrorism. Such a landmark case should draw attention, skepticism and critical thinking about its potential consequences and implications, but for the most part British media has been content to take the word of the state at face value. 

He was facing 18 months on remand before trial, which far exceeds the six month pre-trial custody time limit. He had served nearly a year on remand by the time he was released on temporary bail and didn’t return. Whilst in prison, he was locked in a cell which was designed for one person with another cellmate. His cell was so small that he couldn’t fully extend his arms and he was locked up for 23 hours a day. All of this context is crucial for understanding why Middlebrough decided to escape, and only some of this info would be unavailable to places like Sky News.

Now that we have corrected the record, we feel it is important to talk about the significance of this act. Whilst the reports which will come out will seek to emphasise this as a trivial act of skipping bail, or as an admission of guilt (as the pigs’ old saying goes: if you’re innocent, why would you run?) we should remember that according to Middlebrough’s own words, he has not ‘absconded.’ As he says in his statement to Electronic Intifada, he is ‘not on the run,’ but has instead refused to be further incarcerated as part of a campaign to fortify British complicity with the genocide in Palestine. Much in the same way that the Filton 24 and other Palestine Action protestors are called ‘political prisoners,’ emphasising that they are persecuted because their protests and alleged crimes have run counter to the interests of British imperialism and Zionism, Middlebrough’s actions are a refusal to operate within the terms of engagement set by the British State. He does not recognise himself as having ‘absconded’ because to do so would be to say that his imprisonment has been fair and proportionate. 

To do so would be to recognise the prison system as one which is a legitimate and humane response to social problems. But the historical truth of the carceral system is that it is a part of a wider apparatus of disciplining and controlling the impoverished and racialised elements of the working class through punishment and isolation. Alongside this, it continues its historical role as a means of torture and repression against activists. As a New Socialist article said earlier this year:

Inside prison, detainees are subjected to arbitrary and repressive restrictions. According to a report by Declassified UK, these have included actionist Zoe Rogers being “interrogated for seven days without charge, often in the middle of the night in a windowless cell”. Zoe “was not immediately offered a phone call” upon arrest, “and was held in the prison induction wing for six weeks.” Fatema also experienced harsh treatment, which included being “subjected to multiple random drug tests” and having all of her mail withheld. […] It becomes abundantly clear that the counter terror laws are not being used in order to charge the actionists with a specific political crime they have allegedly committed, but because the category of ‘terrorist’ deprives them of rights that prisoners are supposed to be afforded; because it opens them up to another realm of violence. In essence, they are being pushed outside of the law, all the better to hurt them.

Britain as a carceral state perpetrates this kind of cruelty on both a national and international level; nowhere are systems of control more intricate in their construction and brutal in their effects than in Palestine, where a mixture of laws from the British Mandate and contemporary technology are used in tandem to detain Palestinians without trial, then oppress and abuse them further within the entity’s prisons. Everything that Sean Middlebrough and the Filton 24 have gone through, Palestinians have gone through it and worse, and so have many racialised and colonized people around the world, in particular in the United States, which has one of the largest prison populations and even now enacts a campaign of terror against migrants and political dissidents.

The Filton 24 shares similarities with political detainees in the US; it is hard not to think of Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained by ICE and threatened with deportation for his pro-Palestine views. Others have also been targeted for similar ‘offences’. The proscription of Palestine Action feels very similar to the way Samidoun, an organisation working in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners, has been treated by Canada, Germany and the US. You could also point to how France attempted to ban Urgence Palestine. Nations across the global North are making a concentrated effort to repress their populations, in order to ensure that their geopolitical and economic interests in the Middle East are not disrupted. But whilst this is some cause for concern, there is a silver lining. By being put into this position, the current generation of prisoners and fugitives find themselves in solidarity with all those being treated the same way.

As Dylan Saba writes in Parapraxis, to escape from the clutches of the system is to put oneself in a tradition of revolutionary resistance, sharing a history with radicals like Zakaria Zubdeidi, Assata Shakur, and George Jackson. In fact, as Saba explains, the notion of ‘escape’ permeates so much of Palestinian history and culture. This ranges from the Gilboa prison break to works of art like Wisam Rafeedie’s novel The Trinity of Fundamentals, which starts with a PFLP member on the run from the occupation forces. All over the world, nation states attempt to tighten the carceral vice, and in each place revolutionaries are escaping its grip. Whilst as Khalil says, ‘Justice escapes the contours of [the US’s] immigration facilities,’ by breaking the conditions set on us by the system of racial capitalism, escaping itself can be an act of justice. As the Palestinian revolutionary Basel al-Araj said:

The beginning of every revolution is an exit, an exit from the social order that power has enshrined in the name of law, stability, public interest, and the greater good. Every social and economic authority necessarily intersects with and is an extension of political authority.

Sean Middlebrough, you have made your exit, now godspeed. May we all do the same.

Why the name ‘The Aftershock?’

At fault lines in the tectonic plates, when the earth’s crust can no longer contain the energy and tension within it, the earth shifts, creating seismic waves and causing earthquakes. Usually these happen as part of a sequence of seismic events. The largest of these quakes is known as the main shock. What usually follows is a series of quakes in varying magnitude and frequency, which might compound the damage enacted by the initial event. These are known as aftershocks.

Consider, for a moment, what it must be like to live through an earthquake. To have your life completely thrown up and destroyed. The great rumbling of an seemingly unstoppable force taking away the very foundations of everyday life as you and others know it. And then consider what it must be like to go through aftershocks. To feel constantly unsafe, to be at risk of more injury and death, and never knowing exactly when it will end, or even if it will end at all. And all because of what seems like the sheer bad luck of geography.

Events such as earthquakes are taken for granted as purely natural phenomena. But who gets to live and who gets to die in our society has been structured and influenced by human decision making, and by the way a society has been organised. In the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake in China, the majority of the dead will likely have been peasants living in Yaodong, earth dwellings excavated out of hillsides. In today’s society, the factors by which death is arranged comes from an entwined history of class rule, imperialism and colonization, which has led to what Ruth Wilson Gilmore has called ‘group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death — which is what in my view racism is.’

Western Imperialism might be said to hold the power of an earthquake – both in the sense that its policies and profit-motives exacerbate ‘natural disasters’ such as actual earthquakes, and in the more literal sense of its overwhelming military power. Nowhere is the latter more clear than in places like Palestine, where Israel’s genocide would not possible without the support and aid of countries such as Britain. Such arrangements were not entirely taken for granted – in 2020 the direct action network Palestine Action rose up and enacted a campaign of occupations, blockades and sabotage which threw the Zionist war machine into disarray, causing them to have to close factories, lose out on MoD contracts and getting companies to divest from the death dealer. Elbit changed its tune pretty fast – where it once boasted of having a monopoly on Israeli defence needs as a ‘one stop shop’ and how its weapons were ‘combat-proven’ on Palestinians, it now proclaimed the innocence of it and its subsidiaries. 

For the first in a very long time, those who had profited and benefited from apartheid and ethnic cleansing had started to feel fear. The earthquake had come home, and shattered the windows, torn up the roofs and bashed the gates of their arms factories. Compared to its natural counterparts, and the counterparts erupting in Palestine, these shocks claimed no lives. All they were was effective in disrupting the military industrial complex in Britain and abroad.

It was this effectiveness that the British state – which has maintained a century long complicity with Zionism since the Balfour declaration – sought to stop. And they did so by proscribing Palestine Action, which seemed to be solely in relation to its action at RAF Brize Norton, but which soon became clear had been in the works for a long time, off the back of advice and pressure from alleged sexual harasser Lord Walney and Israeli lobbying. As Declassified UK said: 

The incident at RAF Brize Norton, when Palestine Action activists sprayed paint into Voyager aircraft, was therefore the trigger but not the cause of the proscription order, which had been approved months prior.

The proscription was met by immediate resistance from Defend Our Juries, which started a campaign of civil disobedience, using mass arrests to bog the system down and highlight the government’s authoritarianism and support for genocide. But for the most part, it would not be unreasonable for someone to suggest that the movement is on the back foot, that it is in a moment of defeat.

But like any earthquake, there remains a vast store of tension within the site of the shock, and there remains a great deal of righteous anger at the genocide in Palestine and Britain’s complicity at it. Undoubtedly, people will take action to shut the war machine down, even with the increased risks; the use of counter terror laws has not broken the Filton 24, and it will be unlikely to deter future direct action. But without the visibility of groups such Palestine Action, the media will likely abet the current state of affairs by pretending such action is not happening, that it has stopped completely. In fact, it was only a few years ago that an observer might see actions posted onto Palestine Action’s social media feed that were outright ignored by the mainstream media. If it does appear, it is likely to be misrepresented by the press, which in Britain has long been overwhelmingly right wing and reactionary. The Beaverbrook and Murdoch mobs have always relished the opportunity to incite hatred and anger against those fighting for a better world.

That is where we come in. Our purpose is to record the aftershocks of political struggle, to give those who are committed to direct action against injustice and oppression a platform and a voice. Our team will aim to put out weekly reports of any actions taken around the globe, to write press releases for autonomous and independent activists who do have the capacity to do so themselves, to produce ongoing commentary and articles on politics, liberation and the need for action. With this work, we aim to, as the Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera put it, ‘destroy that which people take for granted’ and to shock them out of complacency and apathy. If the revolution will not come by leaps and bounds, then it will come by shock after shock. We’ll be there at the epicenter, reporting on the work done by the free people of the world to free not only Palestine, but themselves. That such declarations are made as the movement appears to be on the backfoot is no matter. As the Palestinian revolutionary Ghassan Kanfani said: ‘What is happening now is only the labour pains of something great that will be born from the rubble of defeat like a volcano born from under the cold ashes of a forsaken mountain.’

Spokespeople available on request

Contact stoparmingisraelsheffield@gmail.com

Photos and videos available here – https://drive.proton.me/urls/XAZF0QH7F8#A1hegspGOuMA

Key details: 7am to 10am, Forged Solutions, Milford Street, S9 2LDSTARTS

SECOND SHEFFIELD WEAPONS FACTORY SITE SHUT BY PRO-PALESTINE ACTIVISTS

From 7am today, a Sheffield weapons manufacturer has been blockaded by the protest group Stop Arming Israel. This action follows the group’s successful blockades of Forged Solutions’ Meadowhall factory on 15 and 22 July.

The Sheffield-based group halted all traffic heading into the River Don Site of the Sheffield based arms manufacturer Forged Solutions, with protestors standing in front of the entrance to the site holding banners, chanting and giving speeches on the company’s likely complicity in Israel’s genocide. Several lorries have been turned back. The protestors plan to remain until 10am, and expect this to once again shut down the factory for a day.

Forge Solutions is listed on the Open General Export Licence for the F-35 fighter jet, which is currently being used by Israel in its genocide of the people of Gaza. Whilst Forged Solutions has denied that they are making parts for the F-35 in Sheffield, the company boasts on its website that its “services to the defence industry date back well over 100 years…Today, our products can be found across a range of defence applications, from tanks and submarines, to military jets.” [1].

The blockading of the River Don Site is part of the Stop Arming Israel group’s targeting of companies and factories across the city with connections to Israel’s genocide. The group describes it as a form of “peoples sanctions”, joining similar blockades, pickets and occupations across Britain that are seeing arms factories shut down regularly.

A spokesperson for the group stated:

“The Stop Arming Israel group aims not only to target complicity but also direct participation in the genocide in Palestine. Forged Solutions has a long history of supplying parts to companies like Pratt and Whitney and Safran Aero Booster which go on to make engines for fighter jets like the F-35, F-16 and F-15. All of these planes are used by the occupation in its genocide of the Palestinians meaning that Forged Solutions is a participant in the genocide.

“Whilst the British Establishment continues to support the Zionist occupation and criminalise resistance to genocide, Stop Arming Israel stands firmly with the Palestinians by disrupting the supply of weapons and death. Freedom to all oppressed peoples.

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Another protestor explained their involvement in the blockade:

“As Sheffield residents, we are left with no choice but to take matters into our own hands and blockade the Forged Solutions factories. We have lobbied the council and the mayoral authority countless times about the city’s complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. The most effective action we can take is to directly halt the activities of these factories – as we have successfully done on multiple occasions – and disrupt the supply chain of weapons being exported to Israel. Forged Solutions can continue to deny their involvement – we will continue our disruption.”

ENDS

Spokespeople available on request

Contact stoparmingisraelsheffield@gmail.com

Photos and videos available here – https://drive.proton.me/urls/XAZF0QH7F8#A1hegspGOuMA

Key details: 7am to 10am, Forged Solutions, Milford Street, S9 2LD

About Stop Arming Israel

Stop Arming Israel is an organisation committed to ending Sheffield’s complicity in Israel’s genocide. The group targets factories of companies involved in exporting parts which are used in the murder of civilians. The group aims to disrupt these supply chains in order for the city to truly stop arming Israel.

About Forged Solutions

Investigation from the Campaign Against the Arms Trade saw Forged Solutions Group listed as one of 79 companies currently registered on a UK government open licence for exports in support of the F-35 program. [2]

Forged Solutions Group have five sites across the UK, including three in Sheffield, one in Matlock and one in Blaenavon, Wales.

REFERENCES

[1] https://www.forgedsolutionsgroup.com/markets/defence/

[2] https://caat.org.uk/data/countries/israel/mapped-all-the-uk-companies-manufacturing-components-for-israels-f35-combat-aircraft/

Images and videos are available for free [with attribution to Shut Elbit Down Bristol]

In Bristol this morning, activists from ‘Shut Elbit Down Bristol’ took direct action against the Headquarters of Elbit Systems UK, Israel’s number one weapons manufacturer.

Two people cycled up to the entrance of the building and used lock-on devices built into the bikes, to blockade access to the site, draw attention to Elbit’s direct involvement in the genocide in Gaza, and to disrupt Elbit’s British operations, which are controlled from the Aztec West HQ.

Elbit are Israel’s biggest manufacturer of military hardware, producing 85% of the attack drones, which have been used to decimate the civilian population of Gaza. These include the quadcopter drones, which mimic the sounds of crying children, drawing others in to be killed. They advertise their weapons as “battle tested”, but it is no secret that they are actually tested on Palestinian civilians.

This protest takes place as the Minsitry of Defence may imminently grant Elbit Systems a £2billion contract to train 60,000 British soldiers. If this happens, it will make Israel’s biggest weapons firm a strategic partner of the MOD – at a time when the company is actively arming and fueling the genocide in Gaza.
Elbit’s premises throughout Britain, including the Aztec West site, have been the scenes of many previous protests.
Before cycling to Elbit, one action taker said:

“Today we are blocking the entrance of the Elbit factory in Bristol. Elbit are an active participant in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. They supply drones and F-35 fighter jet parts for the Israeli occupying forces. 
Our own Ministry of Defence (MOD) may imminently sign a £2billion contract with Elbit to train 60,000 British soldiers. This is a company that is actively enabling the killing of journalists and civilians, and they’re about to become a strategic partner of the MOD. We can’t allow this to happen, so today we’re shutting Elbit down.”

The other action taker added:

“Today we’re at Aztec West, the Elbit UK headquarters because the UK should not house factories that are actively involved in murdering thousands of Palestinians.
A few days ago it was reported that Elbit are trying to win a contract with the Ministry of Defence to train British soldiers. Elbit is deeply complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people. To them this genocide is just a way to make money. They say that their weapons are “battle-tested” – this testing is done on Palestinians, real people who are getting killed. A famine has been declared, Palestinians are being starved by Israel, yet the UK continues to remain complicit.”

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

The Aftershock is a publisher and media distributor of global actions for Palestine. We help amplify protests and actions, but work independently from the groups themselves.

Overnight, the Direct Action Group DISMANTLE targeted two London-based companies which are linked to Israeli weapons makers, and to the genocide in Gaza. The group spray painted and smashed windows at arms trade group ADS Group and weapons consultancy firm, Eagle Strategic Consulting Ltd.

In one action, activists visited the offices of ADS Group, at Salamanca Place, London SE1, leaving behind broken windows, blood-red paint, and graffiti. The ADS Group act as both trade association, and lobbyists for the biggest players in the arms trade, promoting weapons companies such as Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms firm, and the manufacturer of 85% of the Israeli military’s lethal drone fleet.

ADS have a prominent role in the notorious DSEI (Defence and Security International) arms fair, which takes place in London in September. DSEI is the biggest event of its kind in the world, and sees weapons manufacturers and representatives of many of the world’s most repressive regimes hob-nobbing together, and making arms deals. There are always protests at DSEI, and this year the Campaign Against the Arms Trade are calling for the specific exclusion of Israel, due to the event coinciding with their participation in the genocide in Gaza.

The Head of the ADS Group, Kevin Craven, lobbied both the UK government and Scottish government to proscribe Palestine Action, calling for the authorities to, “carefully monitor the activities of direct action groups including Palestine Action and stand ready to commit greater resource to investigate and disrupt their activities”.  The group were proscribed by Labour home secretary, Yvette Cooper, only a month after Craven’s intervention.

In a second action, carried out overnight, DISMANTLE also visited the registered offices of Eagle Strategic Consulting Ltd, at International House, 45-55 Commercial Street, London E1 6BD. Windows of the building were broken, and it was plastered with paint, and graffiti.

Eagle Strategic are a weapons consultancy firm owned by Richard Applegate, who is Head of Strategy for Israel’s biggest weapons maker, Elbit UK. After a long career in the British Army, Applegate previously headed up Elbit in the UK, and is a director of their drone-manufacturing subsidiaries. The consultancy firm have a clear role in embedding Israel’s weapons trade in Britain, securing the defence contracts and government deals, which financially support the genocide in Gaza.

Two former registered addresses of Eagle Strategic were repeatedly targeted by Palestine Action, before the group was banned, leading to to the company being struck off the company register in 2025. Following the proscription of Palestine Action, Eagle Strategic are back with a new registered address.

Earlier this month, on the 10th and 11th of August, the DISMANTLE group targeted two other companies linked to the Gaza Genocide, Stemmer Imaging of Tongham, Surry, and PwC, an auditing firm used by Caterpillar.

A spokesperson for the Dismantle group said:

“Both ADS group and Eagle Strategic Consulting profit from, and fuel, the genocide in Gaza. Their complicity will not be met with complacency by the general public. Direct action is a powerful tool which we will continue to use against companies which enable the worst crimes against humanity in Palestine.”

On both the 10th and 11th August, a direct action group called ‘Dismantle’ targeted two companies which enable Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.

In the early hours of the 10th August, the group targeted Stemmer Imaging of Tongham, Surrey. Stemmer are a key supplier to Teledyne, who supply the Israeli military with vital equipment, including parts for the F35 jets, which are central to their offensive air capability.

In a short video posted by the DISMANTLE group, an activist is seen using a traditional shepherd’s sling, as used in Palestine for centuries, to hurl projectiles at the Stemmer Imaging premises. DISMANTLE concluded a short statement by demanding, “Stemmer – cut ties with Teledyne”, signing off: “Together we can DISMANTLE the zionist entity.”

In September 2024, Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced that Britain would be suspending 30 Arms Licenses to Israel, telling MPs that “the assessment I have received finds that for certain UK arms exports to Israel there exists a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law.” Thirty is actually less than 10% of the total export licenses relating to the Israeli military, and as Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds subsequently clarified, it would not affect the supply of F-35 parts, which the Israeli air force have continued to use in Gaza.

American-owned Teledyne operates at 6 locations in Britain, and employs Lord Richard Dannatt as an adviser. In 2022, Lord Dannatt wrote to two government ministers, urging them to crackdown on activists who had targeted the Teledyne plant in Presteigne, Wales. The activists, linked to the currently proscribed group ‘Palestine Action’, were convicted of breaking into the plant, and causing £1 Million in damage. In court, the Prosecution denied that Dannatt had sought to interfere in the case, but he had written to home secretary Suella Braverman warning that “the threat from Palestine Action has more widespread implications for security and the economy within the United Kingdom”. He said that he would be “very grateful to receive assurance that the threat from Palestine Action is fully recognised by our security services and appropriate action either planned or being taken”. In 2024, the peer wrote to Dan Jarvis, Labour security minister, along similar lines. Dannatt is now facing conduct inquiries over two sets of allegations that he broke parliamentary rules prohibiting peers from lobbying.

Early on the morning of the 11th August, the DISMANTLE group carried out a second action, this time targeting the London offices of PwC, an auditing company used by Caterpillar. The front of the plush building, at 7 More London Riverside, SE1 2RT, was painted with slogans by activists from the group.

Caterpillar make the huge D9 bulldozers, used as a weapon of war by the Israeli military for many years. Armoured D9s were first used by Israel in the Sinai war in 1956, and have become synonimous with the wholesale demolition of Palestinian homes, and entire villages. The D9 has been used extensively, in the same manner, in Lebanon, and throughout Israel’s war in Gaza.

In 2003, Rachel Corrie, a young American peace activist, who had gone to Gaza as part of the International Solidarity Movement was crushed to death by a Caterpillar D9, while trying to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes.

Following their graffiti attack on PwC auditors, DISMANTLE issued a statement in which they said: “This week Netenyahu announced his plans to occupy all of Gaza. The IDF will certainly use Caterpillar’s tools to attempt to do so.

“Caterpillar is deeply complicit – and so are any companies they work with. We call on PwC to stop working with Caterpillar.”

Staff at the Paris office of Israel’s EL AL airlines, arrived this morning to find that red paint had been sprayed across the front of the building by Palestine Action France. There were also some messages, including, ‘EL AL genocide airline’ and ‘Free Palestine’.

France’s Israeli ambassador visited the property, and proclaimed that the action was an “act of terrorism”, which had been carried out with the intention to “terrorize EL AL employees, terrorize Israeli citizens, scare them and try to make them feel that they are not welcome.” For their part, EL AL claimed that it “unequivocally condemns all forms of violence, particularly those driven by hatred.”

Typically keen to interfere in the legal system of another country was Israel’s Transport Minister Miri Regev, who said: “I condemn the barbaric and violent act against EL AL and expect the law enforcement authorities in France to locate the criminals and take strong action against them,” This echoes language used by Israel in relation to Palestine Action, and other pro-Palestine activists in Britain. Miri Regev was previously a Brigadier-General in the Israeli Army, and has called for the Zionist ‘resettlement’ of Gaza. Just a week ago, she said, “There is no famine. There is no humanitarian disaster. And according to the hostages’ testimonies – there are also no innocents or uninvolved people.”

The event in Paris took place nearly 2 years into Israel’s war against Gaza, which has been widely condemned as Genocide, with the Palestinian area reduced to rubble, almost all civilian infrastructure destroyed, with the population slaughtered en masse, and deliberately starved. Yesterday alone, Israel killed at least 135 Palestinian civilians, including 87 who were queuing for aid. 771 were injured. They have received no sympathy from either EL AL or the Israeli ambassador to France.

EL AL has been making record profits over the past 2 years, due to reduced competition, and a big increase in ticket sales, not least those sold to the 83,000 Israelis who emigrated in 2024. As Francesca Albanese noted in a recent United Nations report, a great many Israeli companies have been making record profits from the genocide, along with international ones.

On Tuesday July 15th, pro-Palestine group ‘Shut Down Leonardo’ drove a van into the perimeter fence of the Leonardo weapons company plant at Crewe Road North, Edinburgh. Three activists remained on top of the vehicle, where they unfurled a Palestine flag.

Leonardo were targeted because the Italian arms manufacturer supplies parts for Israeli F-35 jets and Apache helicopters, which have been fundamental to the genocide in Gaza. The Edinburgh factory produces laser guidance systems, which the Israeli military use to guide the huge 2000 pound bombs which have reduced Gaza to rubble. A recent United Nations report names Leonardo as the “main military contributor” to the ongoing genocide.

The Italian weapons firm makes hundreds of millions in profits each year, but their Edinburgh weapons factory is still subsidised, unwittingly, by the Scottish tax-payer, via Scottish Enterprise. Between 2016 and 2020, the Italian arms giant received £7,000,000 in funding, and this has continued in spite of growing international condemnation of Israel’s war crimes.

This was the first action by ‘Shut Down Leonardo’, but the weapons factory has been the scene of many previous protests by Scottish activists. Never previously, however, has the Terrorism Act been used to arrest and detain protestors in Scotland for an extended period of time, which is precisely what happened to the 3 people who were eventually taken down from the roof of the van, on July 15th. They were held incommunicado for 6 days, subject to round the clock interrogation, and their homes were raided by counter-terrorism police. When they were eventually brought to court on Monday, nearly a week after being arrested, charged under Section 57 of the Terrorism Act 2000, legislation which is as vague as it is Draconian, they were released on bail.

Following the decision by Parliament to proscribe direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation on 4th July, lawyers for the group sought to get proscription postponed pending an application for judicial review. Judge Chamberlain denied the application, arguing that there would be no ‘chilling effect’ on pro-Palestine protest, because of the group being proscribed, even for former members of Palestine Action. In his judgement he said, “It will remain lawful for the claimant and other persons who were members of PA prior to proscription to continue to express their opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza and elsewhere…” He continued that, “Even if their protests take the form of direct action which involves criminality, the fact they were previously members of a group which is now proscribed would not as a matter of law aggravate their criminal conduct.”

Only weeks later, in light of the mass arrests of protestors supporting Palestine Action, the harassment and arrest of those protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza, as well as the use of terrorism laws against protestors like those arrested in Edinburgh, who had no association with Palestine Action, Judge Chamberlain was forced to re-think his position. Granting permission to proceed with a judicial review of the proscription, he conceded that “persons protesting against what they consider to be Israel’s genocide and in support of Palestine or Gaza – who are not on any view expressing support for PA – have attracted various kinds of police attention, from questioning to arrest.” Furthermore, that the police conduct was “liable to have a chilling effect on those wishing to express a legitimate political view.” He referred to other cases “where the line between legitimate and proscribed speech is more difficult to draw”, saying that “the existence of a large category of cases that are close to the line demonstrates that the proscription order is likely to have a significant deterrent effect on legitimate speech.”

The misuse of the Terrorism Act against the Leonardo protestors is another example of overreach by the police. As a post on X (formerly Twitter), issued by ‘Shut Down Leonardo’ at the time of the protest said: “Trying to stop genocide is a duty, the real criminals are the ones enabling it.”

For taking action against Leonardo’s Edinburg factory – a producer of laser targeting systems for Israeli fighter jets – three activists were arrested.

Trying to stop genocide is a duty, the real criminals are the ones enabling it!

Photo credit: Alan Simpson pic.twitter.com/FJMHLz0WyK

— Shut Down Leonardo (@ShutLeonardo) July 15, 2025

While a Judicial Review against the proscription of Palestine Action will now be heard, it will not be heard until November, and who knows how many more Palestinians will have been killed, or starved to death by then. To quote from the press release, issued by ‘Shut Down Leonardo’ following the group’s inaugural action: “The British state, may have proscribed Palestine Action, but the tactic of direct action has a long history in Scotland, and the tactic itself cannot be proscribed.”