Five Palestine Action members are currently defending themselves against charges of violent disorder and criminal damage following an August 6, 2024, raid in Filton, near Bristol. Prosecutors allege the group operated as an aggressive advance unit using fireworks, whips, and hammers to neutralize security guards so an accomplice team could ram a vehicle into the building. Defendant Qesser Zuhrah rejected claims of planned violence, testifying that items like axes and kebab skewers were brought solely to puncture tires and force open warehouse shutters if the vehicle breach failed.
Key points
Activists accelerated the raid after learning the facility was preparing to send military…: Activists accelerated the raid after learning the facility was preparing to send military drones directly to Israel.
The defense argued that tools were carried strictly as contingencies to breach factory sh…: The defense argued that tools were carried strictly as contingencies to breach factory shutters and disable vehicle tires.
The prosecution contends the defendants functioned as an advance team tasked with overwhe…: The prosecution contends the defendants functioned as an advance team tasked with overwhelming security to let a ramming vehicle enter.
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An Israeli-owned arms factory targeted by a group of Palestine Action activists was scheduled to deliver a shipment of drones to Israel around the time of the raid in 2024, a court in London heard on Friday.
Five defendants - Qesser Zuhrah, 21, Zahra Farooque, 26, Kamran Ahmed, 29, Heba Muraisi, 31, and Liam Mullany, 34 - are facing charges of criminal damage and violent disorder at Woolwich Crown Court in connection with the break-in at an Elbit Systems factory in Filton, near Bristol, on 6 August 2024.
Giving evidence this week, Zuhrah, who said she helped coordinate the action, told jurors that she had first heard of the Filton site when others in the group raised concerns "about an immediate shipment of weapons" set to leave the factory and that, as a result, the action had been "speedtracked".
Zuhrah - who was a 19-year-old student at the time of the raid - told the court she believed that Elbit Systems supplied “85 percent of Israel’s land-based weaponry and supplied the drones found at its factories”.
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