A Palestine Action (PA) activist was released from Foston Hall prison after a 37-day hunger strike soon after our last issue went to the printers, on 23 July.
Yogi Bear had been remanded to prison on 17 June after refusing to accept extremely restrictive bail conditions following a PA occupation of the Arconic Factory in Birmingham. (See PN 2655.) They were released after the conditions were reduced to simply remaining in one fixed abode, which they were willing to accept.
On 6 August, two PA activists closed the Central London offices of Israel’s largest arms firm, Elbit Systems, for eight hours by occupying its entrance. PA also covered the premises in blood-red paint. The two occupiers were not arrested when they came down after eight hours.
Three PA activists were arrested on 17 August for blockading a Elbit UAV Tactical Systems drone factory in Leicester. They’d locked themselves to the factory gates.
Less than a week later, on 23 August, PA activists shut down the Elbit Ferranti arms factory in Oldham, occupying it, painting it red and disarming equipment.
PA aims to highlighted Elbit’s facilitation of ethnic cleansing and war crimes committed by the Israeli state against Palestinian people. Elbit has four subsidiaries and two joint ventures in the UK, several of which work on military drone technology.
Two PA activists also covered the entrance tents of the DSEI arms fair in East London with blood-red paint on 12 September. This was the day after a similar PA action at ACC Liverpool, the intended venue of the Europe 2021 electronic warfare arms fair in Liverpool.
There are PA protests every Tuesday afternoon at Elbit’s factory at Oldham, Greater Manchester.