This week the veteran Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was fatally shot in the head by Israeli soldiers during an IDF raid on a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin. Shireen Abu Akleh and her colleague, who survived, were both fired at despite clearly wearing a bulletproof vest marked PRESS. The incident has once again brought to the fore the brutal nature of the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine and the violent subjugation of its people. Last year, activists with Palestine Action shut down the Solvay factory in Wrecsam which helps produce arms for Israel, as part of an ongoing campaign across Britain to break the supply of weapons used against Palestinians. voice.wales spoke to the group. Cover image: Palestine Action activists shut down Solvay, Wrecsam
Who are Palestine Action?
Palestine Action is a direct action network demanding an end to British complicity with Israeli apartheid. Our main target is Elbit Systems and their suppliers. Elbit is Israel’s largest arms company, which has 10 sites in the UK, including factories and offices. The company markets its weapons as “battle-tested” on Palestinian civilians in Gaza and uses this as a lucrative “selling point” to encourage oppressive regimes across the world to purchase its hardware.
Why have you targeted the Solvay chemicals factory in Wrecsam?
Solvay is a key supplier of materials for Elbit’s factory in Leicester, UAV Tactical Systems, where the Watchkeeper drones are produced.
Solvay provides materials and adhesives for UAV Tactical Systems Ltd, specifically used in the production of the Watchkeeper drone, which operated for over 100,000 hours in Afghanistan and Iraq. The drone is based on Elbit Hermes 450, tested and routinely deployed in bombardments of Gaza. UAV Tactical Systems is a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, which provides 85% of Israel’s drones, and a growing provider of war technologies across the globe. Recently, export licences were granted for over £5million worth of military equipment to Israel from the Leicester factory.
The involvement of Solvay in the development of the MQ-9 Reaper Drone (a long endurance hunter killer UAV) further underlines their complicity in global supply chains which aim to profit from the oppression, surveillance and killing of Global South peoples. The drone has been deployed by the UK in Afghanistan and Syria, Australia to surveil refugee crossings, US Border protections, deployed in Yemen, and in the assassination of General Soleimani (an act widely regarded as contrary to international law). There is also evidence of Solvay involvement in Elbit-Adani’s (India) production of Hermes 900 drone production, and the company received widespread attention for an environmental catastrophe caused in Argentina – with their operations contributing to the lead and chlorine poisoning of children.
Solvay products were recorded at the construction site of a bypass pipeline in the Palestinian village of Bardala in the occupied West Bank, the function of this pipeline is to serve illegal Israeli settlements in the northern Jordan Valley. Solvay is therefore also implicated in the theft of Palestinian natural resources by the Israeli regime.
How do the IDF utilise these drones?
Israel’s drones are routinely deployed over Gaza to surveil, harass and murder the Palestinian people. Gaza has been under a brutal air, land and sea blockade for over a decade. They are denied freedom of movement, necessities, autonomy, and the right to return to their homes as stipulated under international law.
The majority of the population in Gaza are children and a 13 year old child in Gaza would have gone through 4 catastrophic bombing campaigns by Israel. For example, in 2014, Israel killed over 2200 Palestinians in Gaza, including 500 children, in 50 days. Elbit Systems provide 85% of Israel’s military drone fleet which is described as the backbone of Israel’s military. These drones are used heavily in attacks on Gaza, and when they’re not being used to kill people, they’re deployed for round-the-clock surveillance of the captive population of Gaza. Not only are these drones used to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people, they also take advantage of these catastrophic attacks by marketing their drones as “battle-tested”. Tested on the population of Gaza.
Just recently, in May 2021, Israel attacked the Palestinian people once again. They killed at least 256 Palestinians, 66 were children, and over 72000 people were forced to flee their homes.
Israeli media reported that Elbit drones were in use and the company’s personnel were part of the operation room of a special drones unit deployed during Israel’s 11-day onslaught against Gaza in May 2021 which left 248 people dead and over 1,900 injured.
According to news reports and an interviewed military General, Elbit drones were in use and new artificial intelligence capabilities were put in practice as part of a new military unit. The unit operated fleets of drones that inspect and collect intelligence and another that would attack targets based on the collected information.
According to the interviewed Israeli military General: “We operated day and night in cooperation with unit 9900, Elbit, the Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure … to perfect the system. We carried out more than 30 operations”. The use of these artificial intelligence capabilities led the military to declare the onslaught on Gaza as the world’s “first AI war.”
What is Wales’ role in Israeli apartheid?
As well as the presence of Solvay, a key supplier for Israel’s drones, Elbit are also currently operating part of their operations out of Parc Aberporth, where alongside Thales and Qinetiq, they carry out trials for such drones.
Britain issued the Balfour declaration in 1917, written by Lord James Balfour, foreign secretary at the time, called for the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Palestinian, in order to create a Jewish majority state. Britain paved the way for the colonisation of Palestinian, which led to the Nakba, translating to “the great catastrophe” in 1948. This is when the extreme Zionist militia, backed by Western governments, brutally forced out more than half the Palestinian population, 750,000 people from their homes. They destroyed over 450 towns and villages, and massacred families. This system of supremacy over the Palestinians has continued until this present day.
Why do you use direct action to achieve your aims?
The British government has been complicit in the colonisation of Palestine for over 100 years. Now, they host Israel’s arms companies which manufacture weapons after they’ve been tested on the captive population of Gaza. Lobbying, protests and petitions have failed to bring an end to Israel’s kill chain. Therefore, we’re taking matters into our own hands and breaking the chain ourselves.
As the late David Graeber said: “Protest is like begging the powers that be to dig a well. Direct action is digging the well yourselves and daring them to stop you.”. For us, that means shutting down the factories which produce materials and parts for Israel’s global arms trade.
What’s the ultimate goal of Palestine Action?
Our end goal is to end British complicity with Israeli apartheid. By taking down Israel’s largest arms company, we’re sending a message to all institutions and companies which profit from the oppression of indigenous people across the world.
