Activists smash front doors of Siemens Cambridge Office in protest against complicity in ongoing genocide in Palestine
In the early hours of October 17 2024 activists in Cambridge shattered the glass front of Kett House, where the offices of Siemens is located. The activists said they targeted this building because of Siemens’ role in “continuing to support one of the most horrific genocides the world has ever seen by providing technological infrastructure to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. We chose to hit them because they are on the official BDS list.”
The official BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Movement website lists Siemens in playing an important role in the occupation of Palestine through the expropriation of Palestinian land: “Siemens is complicit in apartheid Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise through its planned construction of the EuroAsia Interconnector. This will link Israel’s electricity grid with Europe’s, allowing illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land to benefit from Israel-EU trade of electricity produced from fossil gas. #StopFuelingIsraeliApartheid” (https://bdsmovement.net/get-involved/what-to-boycott). The BDS movement has seen success in the last year, with the sports brand Puma pulling out of the Israel Football Association. (https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-puma)
Over the last year since October 7th 2023, over 42,000 Palestinians have been killed by the israeli occupation forces and nearly 100,000 have been injured (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker). In recent months the IOF have also been more aggressive in the West Bank, launching full scale invasions of villages. Israel has also begun attacking Lebanon, Yemen and other neighbouring states who wish to resist the colonial intentions of Israel. The UK is still allowing arms exports and other infrastructural engagements with the Zionist state despite the ICJ ruling that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide.
Cambridge’s involvement in the Zionist project reaches back to the Balfour declaration and tech companies, such as Siemens, and the University of Cambridge’s investments and partnerships complicit in the ongoing genocide are a continuation of this colonial legacy.
One of the activists involved said: “over the past couple of days we have seen some of the most horrific videos of the last year of the attacks on the Gaza Strip and 76 years of occupation in Palestine, with people being burnt alive in a hospital, including a teenager called Shaban al-Dalou. As Israel escalates its ethnic cleansing of the region, expanding from Palestine to Lebanon, we must also escalate in our resistance to it. We live in the heart of imperialism where complicit companies and institutions are allowed to continue their business as usual while people are being murdered in the most appalling ways. We cannot continue to allow this. We must resist. We will see a free Palestine in our lifetimes”