Pro-Palestinian demonstrators clash with police in central London

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed with police in Mayfair, central London, on Monday.

Protests were held outside an office block housing LondonMetric, which is thought to let property to BAE Systems and Boeing.

Dozens gathered outside the One Curzon building and were seen jostling with police on Monday. Footage taken in Curzon Street showed Metropolitan Police officers preventing activists from entering the road.

After police formed a cordon outside the building, a large crowd holding banners gathered, shouting “stop arming Israel”, “free Palestine” and “the people united will never be defeated”.

Griff Ferris wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “Police protecting the landlords of drone factory Elbit Systems”.

Sisters Uncut, an activist group, claimed the companies “all make weapons that have been used to kill over 33,000 people in Gaza”.

Palestine Action wrote on social media: “How many cops does it take to protect the interests of the zionist war machine?”

‘We’ve shut them down!’

Similar demonstrations took place in Kent as Palestine Action protesters targeted the Discovery Park in Sandwich to block access to the business estate.

The site houses Instro Precision Ltd, a subsidiary of Elbit Systems. Footage shared on X showed activists setting off green flares and lying down in sleeping bags as part of an “economic blockade”.

Others could be heard chanting “shut down Elbit now”. The Discovery Park has been targeted by Palestine Action before, with eight protesters from the group having taken part in a blockade around three weeks ago.

Palestine Action posted a clip of the protest on social media, calling for others to join it, and said: “Discovery Park is the base of Elbit’s Instro Precision weapons factory, who make sniper rifle sights for the Israeli army to commit genocide. As part of the economic blockade for Palestine, we’ve shut them down!”

In a separate post, the group claimed four blockades were in place on Monday.

A spokesman said: “It has been clear that there is no route through government to ending the supply of British weapons to Israel’s war machine. Coordinated direct action to immobilise sites of Israeli weapons production is the only possible response.”

The Metropolitan Police, Kent Police and Sisters Uncut were contacted for comment.