Fifty-one Israeli arms makers and the US defence giant behind the F-35 fighters used to bomb Gaza are among the 1,600 exhibitors at the biennial DSEI trade show that begins in London’s Docklands on Tuesday.
Their presence will be the focus for hundreds planning to demonstrate outside the four-day arms fair, at which the defence secretary, John Healey, is expected to speak alongside senior British military officials.
Campaign Against Arms Trade (Caat) said Israel’s three biggest arms companies – Elbit Systems, Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) – were among those planning to attend despite the UK barring an Israeli government delegation last month.
Emily Apple, Caat’s media coordinato, said the British government had reached “peak complicity in genocide” in allowing Israeli arms makers to exhibit, a decision that she said allowed “companies to market their genocide-tested weapons” to international buyers.
Elbit is Israel’s largest private defence contractor, while Rafael and IAI are both state owned. All three are major suppliers to the Israel Defense Forces, which is beginning an assault on Gaza City where hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to be sheltering after nearly two years of bombardment.
IAI and Rafael’s websites confirm that the companies are attending the arms fair, while the DSEI directory says an Elbit Systems subsidiary from Sweden will be exhibiting. In its promotional material, IAI says “we shape the future of global security” with “unmatched strategic capabilities and operational superiority”.
The peak point for the protests is expected to be as the show opens on Tuesday morning, with organisers saying there could be anywhere from 500 to 1,000 demonstrators present. “I’ve never seen this level of interest in anti arms trade protests,” Apple said.
It is the first time the arms fair has been held since Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel in October 2023, and the event is expected to be intensively policed. Ten people were arrested at the last DSEI in 2023 in a Met operation that relied on more than 100 officers daily and cost nearly £2m.
Though the protests are intended to be separate from the recent pro-Palestine Action demonstrations, it is possible that individuals may choose to show their support for the recently banned direction action group.
Almost 900 people were arrested on Saturday in support of Palestine Action, a group that had targeted Elbit Systems manufacturing sites in the UK, including one in Bristol that has unexpectedly closed.
Also exhibiting is Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the F-35 fighter jet used by the Israeli military in the bombing of Gaza. Though the UK government has halted most arms exports to Israel because of legal humanitarian concerns, it has said that British firms can continue to supply components to the US jets because the exports are part of a global programme that it says cannot be separated out.
According to a new estimates from Caat, UK companies have supplied £572m of spare parts for F-35s used by Israel since 2016, including from BAE Systems, which supplies the jet’s active interceptor system. UK companies provide about 15% of the overall value of the F-35, which is also used by the Royal Air Force.
On Monday, the Ministry of Defence will launch a defence industrial strategy, while Healey will attend DSEI and give a keynote address on Thursday. Labour is planning to increase military spending in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the governing party wants to emphasise the jobs and skills the sector can provide.
Ministers will establish a £250m fund to pay for five defence growth deals, boosting defence sub-sectors around the country by bringing together industry, local and national government and academia. A further £182m has been committed to a scheme to establish five defence technical excellence colleges.
Healey said the new industrial strategy would make “defence an engine for growth across the UK”. Ministers wanted to make the UK “the best place in the world to start and grow a defence firm,” he said ahead of the launch.
