A relentless campaign by the Palestine Action group has managed to force Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms company, to permanently shut down another weapons factory in Britain.
Palestine Action uses direct action tactics to shut down and disrupt the Israeli regime’s multinational arms dealers. It announced on Thursday that its campaign has forced Elbit Systems to vacate Elite KL factory in Tamworth, Staffordshire, for good.
This is the third Elbit Systems site in the UK to be shut down permanently by Palestine Action.
According to the pro-Palestine group, the company had previously manufactured cooling and power management systems for military vehicles, but was sold on after stating that it faced falling profits and increased security costs resulting from Palestine Action’s efforts.
“Following the recent acquisition of Elite KL Limited by a UK investment syndicate, the newly appointed board has unanimously agreed to withdraw from all future defense contracts and terminate its association with its former parent company,” Elite KL’s new owners, listed as Griffin Newco Ltd, confirmed the news in an email to Palestine Action.
Elbit Systems itself provides 85 percent of the drones and land-based military equipment for the Israeli military, as well as a wide range of the munitions and armaments currently being used by the occupying regime in its brutal campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The company also maintains the surveillance technology deployed at the Gaza border and military checkpoints there.
Analysts say the genocidal attacks on Gaza, which continue to escalate, provide Israel’s arms manufacturers with opportunities to test and develop their latest lethal inventions.
Despite a massive death toll, the Israeli military has failed to achieve the goals it has been seeking to score through the campaign in Gaza, such as “destroying” Hamas, finding the captives that the Gaza-based resistance movement is holding, and bringing about forced displacement of the Palestinian territory’s population to Egypt.