Major Supplier of Munitions Used in Genocide in Gaza.
Following legal briefings and preparation of a Notice & Demand letter from the PAL Law Commission to major munitions supplier Day & Zimmermann (D&Z), the Philly Palestine Coalition (PPC) and the International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine (ICSGP), along with numerous social justice organizations, will hold a protest outside Day & Zimmermann’s national headquarters in Philadelphia, today at 4pm. These actions are part of the launch a nationwide PAL/ICSGP campaign to denounce and block Day & Zimmermann’s key role in the ongoing genocide against Palestinians—producing a major share of the ammunition being used to murder innocent Palestinian civilians. The Sponsors call for sustained mass mobilizations by civil society against war crimes companies like D&Z.
The U.S. government intensified its transfer of weapons to Israeli Occupation forces since their escalation of brutal war crimes against Palestinians after October 7, 2023. Day & Zimmermann is the sole purveyor to Israel of three of the most frequently used munitions in the ongoing genocide in Gaza—M795 155mm tank shells, M107 High Explosive Projectiles (another type of 155mm tank shell), and M830A1 HEAT 120mm cartridges—the parts for which are produced and assembled by factories owned by D & Z and its subcontractors in diverse sites including Texarkana, TX; Middletown, IA; and Scranton, PA. In selling to Israel the ammunition responsible for killing tens of thousands of Palestinian children and their families, Day & Zimmermann has made billions of dollars of profit.
Attorney Lamis Deek, Founder and Director of the PAL Law Commission, stated:
“It’s appalling that on the heels of the ICJ Order directing global measures to prevent and punish genocide, Israeli forces, and their US and War Company accomplices, have escalated their crimes and violations of the ICJ Order. We’ve briefed these issues quite thoroughly and will send a first and final Notice and Demand to Cease and Comply Letter earlier today. We intend to contact relevant authorities, and we are prepared to take all action needed, in every jurisdiction available to us. As we noted in our Demand Letter, as global efforts for justice and accountability for Israeli crimes escalate, the veil of impunity that may have once shielded Israeli forces, and thereby shielded companies like Day & Zimmermann will soon, and quickly, be lifted.”
Attorney Deek stressed that,
“We saw in the UK government officials strike for fear of liability so D&Z should take heed that neither borders nor proximity to power will serve as sanctuaries against liability, be it legal, civil, financial and beyond. They face grave compliance breaches and potentially criminal charges, in several forums. War Crimes Companies are being pursued and there are more cases in the works. It behooves D&Z to cease their munition supply until all Israeli war crimes end, so as to extricate themselves from the ever-tightening grip of the accountability movement which is mushrooming- here, and all over the world. “
The Philly Palestine Coalition, which is hosting today’s protest, held a previous rally against Day & Zimmermann last month. PPC organizer Nada Abuasi stated:
“Since our rally on March 9th, our message out on the streets has been loud and clear! The Philly Palestinian Coalition and all the communities it proudly represents, demand that the U.S. stop supplying Israel with weapons now! We know that Day & Zimmermann is a privately owned weapons manufacturer headquartered here in Philadelphia, and that it owns several factories that produce the artillery munitions used by the IOF, including artillery shells & high-explosive rounds fired by the IOF’s Merkava tanks.”
Abuasi points out that an Israeli-operated tank, utilizing M830A1 rounds—of which Day & Zimmermann is currently the exclusive supplier to Israel—killed six-year-old Hind Rajab while trapped in a car with her dead family members for several days. She added:
“It’s outrageous that a weapons manufacturer like Day & Zimmermann operates in our economically segregated and gentrifying city, while Philadelphians face homelessness, failing transportation, university-driven gentrification, and underfunded schools. Philadelphia cannot harbor companies implicated in genocide. As Philadelphians, we will continue to fight relentlessly to ensure that complicit institutions in our community—from universities like Penn and Drexel to private corporations like Day & Zimmermann—will be held accountable.”
Activists, workers, and politicians around the world have been demanding an end to the ongoing genocide. Adrienne Pine, co-coordinator of the ICSGP, stated:
The ICSGP stands firmly with our Palestinian member organizations in their call for global social movements to disrupt the supply chain of the weapons and ammunition being used to slaughter their families. Day & Zimmermann has the blood of tens of thousands of Gazans directly on its hands, and today we send them a message that we will not rest until they are no longer able to profit from genocide, and are held accountable for their crimes.
Pine also highlighted the global harms of Zionism, which provide a profound motive for global solidarity in the fight against profiteers of Zionist genocide and toward collective liberation:
The primary victims of U.S. unconditional support for and taxpayer funding of Israel since its violent foundation as a settler colony have of course been Palestinians. But U.S. support for the Zionist project has been harmful to people the world over, who have suffered direct intervention by the U.S. and Israel in their sovereign processes. Israel and the U.S. have jointly instigated and/or materially supported other genocides—for example in Myanmar and Guatemala. They have similarly jointly supported coups and brutal dictatorships around the globe, like they did in Honduras and Chile. Through bilateral police and military training programs and weapons exports, Israel—with full U.S. support—has also succeeded in exporting its technologies of repression, tested on Palestinians, to governments around the world that use them to crush the democratic aspirations of racialized poor populations and communities. The millions of U.S. residents living paycheck-to-paycheck are further directly harmed by U.S. support for Israel, when billions of our taxpayer dollars are paid to buy weapons from manufacturers like Day & Zimmermann in order to carry out the genocide in Gaza instead of toward ensuring our access to basic human rights like housing and healthcare. Philadelphians have felt the harmful impacts of Zionism firsthand, and have made it crystal clear that Day & Zimmermann is not welcome in their community. We stand alongside them in demanding Day & Zimmermann immediately halt manufacturing and selling ammunition for use in the genocide.