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Europe|Seven People Charged After Breaking Into Israeli Arms Company’s U.K. Site
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/world/europe/israeli-arms-company-break-in.html
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Prosecutors argued in court that a group of pro-Palestinian activists who vandalized a site belonging to Elbit, an Israeli arms manufacturer, had committed offenses with a “terrorist connection.”
Aug. 13, 2024, 2:08 p.m. ET
British counterterrorism police charged seven people with violent disorder on Tuesday, after a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators forced their way into a building owned by an Israeli defense firm in southwest England.
Seven people ages 20 to 51 were charged with criminal damage and violent disorder, the police said in a statement. One man, age 22, was also charged with assault.
The Crown Prosecution Service, the public prosecutor for England and Wales, said it would argue in a court hearing on Tuesday “that these offenses have a terrorist connection.”
The seven individuals are accused of taking part in a raid in the early hours of Aug. 6 that targeted Elbit, an Israeli defense firm whose British subsidiaries employ around 700 people across 16 sites.
Activists from Palestine Action, a protest movement that aims to disrupt Israeli arms manufacturing in Britain, broke into a research and development site, known as Horizon, last week, using a van to drive through a fence, police said in a statement.
Once inside the building in Filton, near Bristol, the group smashed equipment and damaged property. The police said they found axes, sledgehammers and homemade weapons on the scene. Two police officers were assaulted with a sledgehammer, the statement said, and one of them was taken to a hospital for treatment.
