Palestine Action shuts down Edinburgh’s Leonardo weapons plant

Direct action activist group Palestine Action has used vans to blockade the Crewe Road, Edinburgh premises of Italian arms manufacturer Leonardo, accusing it of contributing to genocide. Scottish ‘actionists’ are currently secured to each other on top of vehicles blocking both entry gates to the plant and preventing the manufacture of parts for Israel’s F-35 fighter jets that have played a key role in Israel’s bombing of civilians and infrastructure in Gaza.

Leonardo, is one of the world’s biggest arms manufacturers, with extensive ties to the Israeli state according to anti-arms trade group CAAT. Since 2015, the Edinburgh plant has manufactured the laser-targeting systems for the F-35 jets, which have been used by Israel to drop 2,000lb bombs on the Palestinian population of Gaza. Leonardo also makes parts for Israel’s Apache helicopters and works in partnership with Israeli weapons-maker Elbit Systems, according to the Who Profits Research Center. The firm has received millions of pounds in support from the Scottish government over the last decade.

Palestine Action have targeted Leonardo in Edinburgh several times since October 2023. A spokesperson for Palestine Action said:

While the British and Scottish governments continue to support the Israeli war industry, Palestine Action refuse to permit complicity. By shutting down Leonardo, Edinburgh, these activists are preventing the production of Palestinian slaughter.

Since October last year, Israel as murdered around 200,000 civilians, overwhelmingly women and children, and is engaged in the deliberate starvation and ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of survivors. UK PM Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy have refused to acknowledge the genocide and continue to abet it, despite arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court on Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity.

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