Palestine Action (PA) has organised at least five more actions in the last two months. PA activists have had charges against them dropped – and they’ve also had house raids.
The first action in the latest run came on 24 January, when PA raided the UAV Engines factory in Shenstone, Staffordshire. UAV is a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, the Israeli arms company that produces 85 percent of Israel’s military drones, used in attacks on Palestinians in Gaza.
PA activists occupied the roof, sprayed the premises with red paint, broke windows, and dismantled equipment.
On 14 February, ‘to show love for humanity’, PA activists occupied two factories 160 miles apart: Elbit suppliers AAPPH in Runcorn, near Liverpool; and Elbit’s partners Thales in Reading, near London. They sprayed red paint and damaged the factory and equipment.
On 18 February, PA activists attacked Elbit’s property managers Fisher-German in Birmingham. They sprayed ‘Evict Elbit’ in red paint on its premises and smashed windows.
On 27 February, PA raided Elbit factories in Tamworth and Shenstone again. Roofs were occupied, red paint sprayed and equipment inside dismantled.
Desperate policing
PA reported on 8 February that four activists charged with criminal damage to Elbit factories had had their charges dropped. According to PA, prosecutors have failed to get convictions against 11 activists in the first four PA trials.
Another four had criminal damage charges dropped on 14 February.
However, on 25 February, PA announced that eight people had recently been arrested on suspicion of being involved in PA. They included a 16-year-old XR Youth activist uninvolved in PA.
Their homes were raided and police interviewed them to try to extract information.
None of the eight were charged with any crimes.