Activists take sledgehammers to defense contractor building over Gaza
A spokesperson for the local police force said that officers received a report at 5:04am of a break-in at the premises, and, upon arriving at the location, found four people on the roof.
Activists in Shipley, England, were recorded on Tuesday taking a sledgehammer to the roof of a factory owned by Teledyne, a US-based defense contractor targeted for ties with Israel.
“Breaching security, the activists scaled the factory to take the roof, forcing the site [to close] and rendering it unable to fulfill its shipment of weapons parts to be used in the Gaza genocide,” the activists’ group, Palestine Action, said in a statement.
Palestine Action activists dismantling Teledyne’s weapons factory in Shipley, West Yorkshire, England.The site produces components for missiles and F-35 fighter jets used by the Israeli military to commit genocide in #Gaza.#Gaza_Genocide #Palestine pic.twitter.com/qSxXElIX90
— DOAM (@doamuslims) April 2, 2024
A spokesperson for the local police force said that officers received a report at 5:04am of a break-in at the premises, and, upon deploying to the location, found four people on the roof of a building.
Videos posted online Tuesday show several activists smashing windows and damaging shingles on the roof, proclaiming their opposition to Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. One activist is heard dedicating his action to the victims of alleged “gang rape” by IDF forces, possibly referring to a widely circulated but later retracted report by Al Jazeera last month.
Uniformed officers, presumably police or private security guards, are seen looking on from the ground.
A crowd was gathered at the foot of the building as of about 10am local time, according to the local Telegraph & Argus news outlet, which said that the number of onlookers had grown over the course of the morning.
The report said that West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, Yorkshire Ambulance Service, and police were present at the site.
Teledyne was granted at least 86 licenses to export weapons to Israel between 2009 and 2014, according to a sympathetic report about the incident on the website FreedomNews, citing records from the UK’s Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). The factory in question, the report said, “manufactures critical components for missile systems” deployed by the IDF in Gaza.
The break-in on Tuesday was not the first time activists have targeted the company: members of the same group used sledgehammers to break into a Teldyne site in Wales in December 2022, destroying computers and causing what the group claims was £1m in losses, though this figure could not be confirmed.
Teledyne did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Actionists are reaching every corner of this weapons factory to bring it down for Palestine!Join them at Teledyne, Shipley, BD17 7SW pic.twitter.com/fWrftE1kBX
— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) April 2, 2024
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