On Monday 17 March, four were arrested for assault and damage caused during a protest at a weapon company’s Bristol facility on Sunday 16 March.
By Oliver Poyser, Second year, Philosophy and Politics
The protest was organised by Palestine Action, a pro-Palestinian activist group focusing on disrupting arms companies it alleges to supply the Israeli military. Its current primary focus is Israeli defence company Elbit Systems, whose Bristol factory in Aztec West was the target of the protest. Elbit explicitly denies that it manufactures arms for the Israeli military.
Videos from Palestine Actions’s X (Twitter) account show three protestors reaching above the second floor of the facility using a cherry picker – a truck with a hydraulic crane attached to it – and smashing windows there with a swinging hammer attached to string, as well as spraying red paint on the facility. They state that the fourth remained locked in the van below.
The four protestors arrested with a charge of conspiracy to damage property and assault by beating (on one count) are:
- Rosa Garland, 28, from Southwark, London
- Aleksandra Hobson, 36, from Halifax
- Sana Kamal, 19, from Liverpool
- James Williams, 34, from Easton, Bristol
They were held in custody after their arrest by Avon and Somerset Police, until appearing at Bristol Magistrates’ Court on March 17, where they were released on bail.
Palestine Action states that the protest was to ‘dismantle the British command centre of Israel's weapons trade’, alleging that Elbit and its subsidary Elbit Systems Land (formely known as IMI Systems) supplies the Israeli’s millitary with a variety of arms and survellience equipment, making it ‘Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.’
Speaking to the BBC, a spokesperson for Elbit said that Elbit Systems are ‘proud to deliver a broad range of modern and innovative equipment and services to the British armed forces.
‘Any claims that this facility supplies the Israeli military or Israeli Ministry of Defence are completely false.’
