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Rochdale protesters lock themselves to TT Electronics gates over F-35 parts claims
Pro-Palestinian protesters blocked a TT Electronics factory in Rochdale, England, on Oct. 19, claiming the plant supplies parts for F-35 fighter jets and Elbit drones used by Israel. Britain has kept F-35 components exempt from its partial suspension of arms exports to Israel.
Pro-Palestinian protesters locked themselves to the entrance of a TT Electronics factory in Rochdale, near Manchester in northern England, on Monday, Oct. 19, saying the plant is a link in the supply chain for weapons used by Israel in Gaza.
Video from the scene shows demonstrators sitting at the gate with their arms inside lock-on tubes covered with Palestinian flags, while red paint was splashed across the road outside.
"TT Electronics make F-35 parts, they're crucial to the supply chain," one protester said. "This is why we're shutting it down to free Palestine." The protester said security staff had dragged the group around "like rag dolls" and called on others to come and join the blockade.
According to Anadolu, the activists claim that components made at the site end up in F-18 and F-35 fighter jets and in drones built by Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems. The claims could not be independently verified.
Britain's F-35 exemption
The F-35 has become a focus of pro-Palestinian campaigns in Britain because British companies supply about 15% of the components of every F-35. When the government suspended 30 arms export licenses to Israel in September 2024, it exempted F-35 parts, arguing that they are supplied through a global pool that cannot be restricted for a single country.
Woking-based TT Electronics, which makes electronic components for the aerospace, defense and medical sectors, bought the power and control business of Greater Manchester's Ferranti Technologies from Elbit Systems UK for £9 million in January 2022.
Activists said they planned to keep the factory shut all day. "Israel wouldn't be able to commit the genocide without places like this," one of them said.
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