Approximately 135 demonstrators, according to the Bay Area Palestine Solidarity movement, stopped the company’s gates to demand that it stop supplying Israel with US-made weaponry.
In the midst of Tel Aviv’s devastation in besieged Gaza, demonstrators supporting Palestine have blocked the entrance of weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, California, demanding an end to military aid to Israel. Washington has been providing Israel with unlimited political and military backing.
Workers were unable to enter because of the 135 protestors who assembled on Thursday between 6 and 11 a.m., according to the Bay Area Palestine Solidarity organization.
“Free Palestine,” “Stop arming Israel,” and “War criminals work here,” which alluded to Lockheed Martin, were among the placards carried by the demonstrators.
According to the coalition, a hostile Lockheed Martin employee who was on the verge of losing it and threatening to run over the protestors was defused by the demonstrators.
“One furious Lockheed Martin employee exclaimed, ‘Somebody’s going to die,’ brandishing a knife, and threatening to run over demonstrators.’ On X, formerly known as Twitter, Bay Area Palestine Solidarity stated, “Our folks safely de-escalated the violent employee.”
Before the situation was defused, an employee was seen on social media accelerating toward the demonstrators, brandishing a knife, and threatening them.
This blockade is a reflection of others that have been launched against weapon manufacturers worldwide in opposition to their role in Israel’s extermination of Palestinians. According to Bay Area Palestine Solidarity, “It is our collective duty to sabotage the war machine until Palestine is free.”
Lockheed Martin is a prominent US maker of weapons and missiles.
“One of the biggest arms producers in the world is Lockheed Martin. A demonstrator at the location said, “They’ve been supporting apartheid Israel for at least 20 years… their weapons are killing mothers, children, men, families, & innocent people.”
“Party to genocide”
Since the beginning of Tel Aviv’s savage bombardment on besieged Gaza, where it has killed over 33,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, pro-Palestine protests have shook the US.
The protesters, who claim that the US is “complicit in the genocide,” have made cutting off military aid to Israel one of their main demands.
Despite the US’s repeated vetoes of UN ceasefire resolutions, the final one was able to pass because of their abstention.
According to the UN, Israel has caused almost 85% of Gaza’s people to be displaced and has left 60% of the infrastructure of the blockaded territory either destroyed or damaged.
The International Court of Justice has charged Israel with genocide and directed Tel Aviv to take more action to avert the famine situation in Gaza. There are good reasons to think Israel is killing Palestinians in Gaza, according to Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the state of human rights in the Palestinian territories.
SOURCE: TRTWORLD
