by Annie Robbins / MondoWeiss

Marking the first anniversary of Israel’s 51 day assault on Gaza last summer, Block the Factory activists in the UK protested at 3 Elbit Systems arms factories in the UK this morning; Elbit’s Elite KL factory in Tamworth, Staffordshire; Instro Precision in Broadstairs, Kent, and a UAV Engines plant at Shenstone, Lichfield, a factory that manufactures and exports drone engines to Israel.

Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest publicly traded weapons company with government military contracts in the US, UK and Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. Their arms are used by Israel to target and massacre civilians in Gaza.

The peaceful actions planned by protesters were met by a heavy police presence at Shenstone’s UVA Engine factory.

Still, the activists successfully shut down the UVA factory for the day.

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Several people were arrested:

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RT UK cites activist Alex Levan, 31, said organizers had intended the protest to be peaceful.

A variety of campaign groups including War on Want, Campaign Against the Arms Trade and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign united under the umbrella movement “Block the Factory” to organize the day of action. Speaking to RT, activist Alex Levan, 31, said organizers had intended the protest to be peaceful. “There were lots of police from early on,” he said. “They were very rough, they manhandled protestors, [and] they were very heavy-handed.” “The idea was to reclaim the space around the factory and to turn it into a real festival environment, a creative activist environment with workshops, with a family space, with arts and crafts.” “But the police were heavy-handed, they’ve made at least 10 arrests, but there will probably be more. These were completely unprovoked arrests, these were peaceful protests,” he added.

International Business Times cites London Palestine Action‘s Elly Hassan: