A London crown court heard on Friday that a UK-based Israeli-owned arms manufacturing facility targeted by pro-Palestine activists in August 2024 was on the verge of dispatching a drone shipment bound for Israel at the time of the direct action. The five defendants facing trial at Woolwich Crown Court — 21-year-old Qesser Zuhrah, 26-year-old Zahra Farooque, 29-year-old Kamran Ahmed, 31-year-old Heba Muraisi, and 34-year-old Liam Mullany — are formally charged with criminal damage and violent disorder over the break-in at the Elbit Systems site in Filton, a town near Bristol, on 6 August 2024.
Testifying this week, Zuhrah, who identified herself as a core coordinator of the action, told jurors the group accelerated their planned operation after learning of the impending weapons shipment from other Palestine Action members. At the time of the raid, Zuhrah was a 19-year-old university student, and she stated under oath that Elbit Systems supplies an estimated 85% of Israel’s land-based military hardware, with the Filton facility producing drones that the company openly acknowledges are field-tested on Palestinian populations. She emphasized her belief that the drones set to ship from the site were destined for use in Gaza, dismissing any suggestion this was an unsubstantiated assumption.
Prosecutors have framed the five defendants as members of a so-called “black team” whose stated objective was to overwhelm on-site security personnel to clear a path for a second “red team” of activists, who planned to use a repurposed prison van to ram through the factory’s loading bay shutters and destroy stored military equipment. Prosecution claims allege the black team members, dressed in matching black jumpsuits, deployed threats, intimidation, fireworks, and carried implements including whips, hammers, and large kebab skewers to assault or coerce security staff. All five defendants have entered not-guilty pleas to all charges against them.
Under direct examination from her defense counsel Garry Green KC, Zuhrah pushed back against the prosecution’s framing of the black team’s purpose, explaining their sole intended role was to create a distraction: generating a thick smoke screen via flares and fireworks to obscure the red team’s movements, and using loud pyrotechnics to muffle the sound of the prison van crashing through the loading bay, before evacuating the site immediately. Zuhrah confirmed she purchased many of the items used in the operation, including fireworks and flares, as well as contingency tools such as axes, crowbars, and hammers that would only be deployed to cut through shutters if the van failed to breach the entrance. She addressed court testimony that she had referred to these tools as “weapons” in pre-action group messages, explaining the term was used interchangeably with “tools” or “equipment” because the group had been discussing arms factories nonstop in the lead-up to the action, and the implements were designated to destroy weapons held inside the facility, not harm people.
Zuhrah also clarified the purpose of the kebab skewers carried by the black team: the sharpened metal sticks were intended to puncture the tires of the prison van if it failed to break through the shutters, leaving the disabled vehicle parked across the loading bay to block any outgoing weapons shipments for an extended period of time. When asked directly by her lawyer if the raid plan ever included intentional violence or threats of harm against security staff or other individuals on site, Zuhrah responded with a firm “absolutely not.” She noted that prior Palestine Action operations typically relied on evasive tactics, with activists fleeing quickly and using winding routes to shake off pursuing security personnel, with no intention of lingering to provoke confrontation. She added that the team was fully aware Elbit’s on-site security staff were largely ex-military and highly trained, making any prolonged direct confrontation impractical.
The court heard that after the red team’s van breached the site’s outer perimeter fence, the black team advanced on foot toward the loading bay, where one member used an angle grinder to weaken the metal shutters to make it easier for the van to ram through. The rest of the black team began lighting fireworks and flares to generate rapid, dense smoke to obscure their movements, and Zuhrah emphasized she threw all of her lit flares into an empty open space ahead of her, and had not spotted any security staff at that point in the operation.
Once the van successfully crashed through the loading bay shutters, the black team moved toward the outer perimeter fence to evacuate as originally planned, before a member of the group spotted a fellow activist being dragged backward by the throat by two unseen security guards through the thick smoke. Distressed by what she initially mistook as a lifeless body being pulled away, Zuhrah lit a firework and discharged it into the open space in front of her, hoping the sudden noise and light would break up the altercation and stop the guard’s assault. She stressed she did not aim the firework at the security staff, and had no intention of causing anyone burns or physical harm, as the guards were not positioned directly in her line of sight at the time.
Zuhrah told the court that at one point during the chaotic incident, a security guard picked up an axe and a whip and began swinging them wildly while shouting, leaving her fearing for her safety. She noted the unplanned detour to intervene in the altercation derailed her original plan to leave the site quickly to return home and sit for scheduled university exams. When the group finally fled toward the perimeter fence, a pursuing security guard lashed Zuhrah with the whip as she attempted to climb a pole to scale the barrier, after she failed to scramble over the main fencing alongside her peers.
During cross-examination by lead prosecutor Deanna Heer KC, Zuhrah was questioned about a pre-operation message she sent to a prospective activist noting that many Elbit security staff were ex-military, framing the situation as “literally fight or flight.” Zuhrah explained the message was not referencing planned violence, but was a screening measure to ensure the recruit remained calm and level-headed in the event of a potential unexpected confrontation, rather than panicking and escalating the situation. When questioned about a separate conversation with an activist who refused to let his younger brother join the action, Zuhrah clarified that the concerns raised were about the risk of arrest, not any planned violent conduct. The trial remains ongoing at Woolwich Crown Court.