After weeks of action, the sole recruiters for the British operations of Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems, have confirmed via email to Palestine Action that they ended their association with Elbit on the evening of the 29th November. For two months, activists in the Palestine Action network had disrupted iO Associates at their premises across the country, to impede their ability to recruit roles for Israel’s war machine.
iO Associates recruited the likes of engineers, software developers, and finance staff for positions across the sites of the British branch of Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems. Elbit are the largest supplier to the occupation military, providing the vast majorities of its drones, munitions, surveillance gear, and parts for its tanks, jets, and precision missiles. From Britain specifically, they manufacture parts for Israel’s killer drones, along with weapons sights, tank parts, and more, exporting these technologies to Israel in great volume yearly. This is the nature of the business that IO was Associates with, and were IO Associates biggest client.
In response to their facilitation of Elbit’s criminal activities, iO’s offices were stormed and occupied in Manchester on the 1st September, and again on the 7th October. Activists painted iO offices red on October 9th in London, Reading, and Manchester. They were forced to vacate their Manchester offices from the 11th October, after the premises were also stormed by the Youth Front For Palestine, and then finally targeted in Edinburgh twice, on the 11th and 17th October. After being forced to vacate their offices, having their online presence tarnished, and (as confirmed to us by former employees) losing their staff who resigned in opposition to their arms trade partnership, iO Associates have finally cut ties with Israel’s weapons trade.
This is part of an expansive strategy by Palestine Action, by disrupting the suppliers and facilitators of Elbit’s presence in Britain. It has seen Elbit’s accountants (Edwards), haulage providers (Kuehne + Nagel), landlords (JLL) and many other complicit companies targeted, alongside the hundreds of actions at Elbit sites themselves, continuing to resist the presence of Elbit warmongers in Britain, and constantly reminding those associated with them that they have blood on their hands.
As a result of iO Associates dropping Elbit Systems, the recruiters have been removed as a target of Palestine Action’s campaign. All targets who still facilitate Israel’s weapons trade are listed on elbitsites.uk