Khaberni - 6 individuals appeared before a British court on Monday, charged with raiding the site of an Israeli defense company last year and causing damage, during a gathering of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the court's entrance gates.
In support of the defendants, demonstrators carrying banners and Palestinian flags gathered at the gates leading to the Woolwich Crown Court, chanting "Freedom for Palestine," their voices heard inside the courtroom.
According to court documents, the six are accused of belonging to a group "that committed burglary, criminal damage, and violent disorder" at the Elbit Systems headquarters in Bristol, West England, on August 6.
Samuel Corner, Jordan Devlin, Charlotte Hyde, Leona Camiow, Fatima Zainab Rajwani, and Zoe Rogers arrived at the court in the morning, and their trial is expected to last 10 weeks.
Corner is also charged with a separate crime: deliberately harming a police officer during the incident.
The six sat in a single row inside the defendant's dock, exchanging smiles with their relatives and friends present in the room, some wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh.
According to the indictment presented by the court, the defendants entered the Elbit Systems headquarters in August 2024 intending to cause unlawful damage, carried "crime weapons, namely heavy hammers," and destroyed or damaged property, using or threatening unlawful violence while present with others.
Elbit Systems, a "global defense technology company," has about 20,000 employees and revenues nearing 2 billion dollars, according to its official website.
Over the past months, the company has faced ongoing protest campaigns from activists opposing the war on Gaza, including sit-ins, roof climbing, window breaking, and splashing red paint on the building to protest Elbit's involvement in supplying the Israeli military with drones used in the aggression on the Gaza Strip.
