TODAY at Woolwich Crown Court the jury is due to deliver the verdict on six of the Filton 24, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, Fatema Rajwani, Zoe Rogers, Jordan Devlin and Charlotte Head.
After fifteen months in prison – without being convicted of any crime – the first six of the Filton 24 began their trial on 17th November 2025. All were arrested inside the Elbit facility in August 2024.
Elbit manufactures quadcopter drones that are used in Gaza and are used to slaughter Palestinians, mainly women and children.
Claire Hinchcliffe, the mother of one of the six, Zoe Rogers, spoke at Saturday’s massive rally for Palestine in London:
‘MY DAUGHTER Zoe is one of six young people on trial right now for taking action against Israeli weapons firm Elbit Systems in Filton, Bristol.
The jury has been out for weeks – but we hope and pray that next week they will return a good and just verdict.
Let me tell you about Elbit Systems, it’s not a company that makes teddy bears
It is Israel’s largest weapons supplier.
It boasts about being the backbone of the Israeli military and makes 85% of their drones. It has sites all over the UK.
And in the Filton factory, the activists found and dismantled killer quadcopter drones packed up and ready for export.
The six were arrested on site and from that moment on, their treatment at the hands of the British state has been eye-wateringly cruel.
For instance, the state has kept them in prison for nearly 18 months – without being convicted of any crime.
I believe that’s because their action struck a nerve deep in the heart of our government’s unholy alliance with Israel’s main weapons supplier.
These young people poked a monster.
Our government is determined to protect and do business with Elbit Systems at all costs, and that’s what all of this is about.
Protecting Elbit’s property is more of a priority to this government than the rights of its own citizens, upholding international law and preventing a genocide.
Over the year and a half of my daughter’s imprisonment I’ve learnt a bit about the arms trade.
And what I’ve learnt has horrified me. The power of companies like Elbit Systems to influence and corrupt our governments cannot be underestimated.
But neither can we underestimate the power of ordinary people who bravely risk their own freedom out of sheer love for humanity.
I wrote a poem called ‘Who will slay the Elbit Beast?’
Where did it come from, this vile thing?
It must have crawled out of the north Atlantic depths
While we were all asleep
And now it’s here
Growing viler and more bloated by the year.
And while it’s too disgusting to describe,
I can tell you there’s an orifice beneath its tail
That pumps out bombs and drones and piles of stinking cash
For anyone who can stand the smell.
Its face is too hideous to see
– Think of something like a baby’s brain
Hanging from its bombed out skull –
But we don’t have to look at it,
It’s screened off behind
The shiny websites, offices and names
Lockheed Martin, Rafael,
British Aerospace
And Elbit Systems, pride of Israel
Offering “solutions”, “security” and of course “defence”
And other polished forms
Of deadly excrement.
It’s groomed and fed
By the billionaires it’s made
And the politicians it controls,
It has many, many mouths
And as each one shrieks for more,
Ministers disembowel their budgets
And feed it with our money
That was intended for the poor.
When they meet behind closed doors
World leaders aren’t discussing security or peace,
They’re only middle ranking sales reps
Doing deals for the beast.
What does this creature want from us?
A world of endless war, austerity and death
Ruled by a handful of the super rich?
Do this chosen few not realise
That when the ship goes down
The beast will feast on their flesh too?
Who will slay this monster?
The long arc of the universe
Bends in unexpected ways
Bringing justice,
Not through politicians judges or police
But through our children,
Armed with not much more
Than courage and outrageous love
Who go into the monster’s lairs
Poke it with their sticks
Pull its tail and crack its teeth.
They get rounded up, arrested and detained
But more of them return in waves.
It doesn’t matter that this monster
Meets weekly with police
Or that puppets in their wigs and gowns
Call them “terrorists” and send them down.
The authorities cannot compete
With those who don’t fear prison
If a child’s life is saved.
And each time it’s poked
The monster roars and rises up
So at last its belly,
Swollen with the blood of innocents,
Becomes exposed to public view
And ends all talk of “self defence”.
One day in the future,
When its rotted corpse
Has long been thrown back in the sea,
They will know it was our children
They will say it was our children
They will sing about our children
Who’ve slain the Elbit beast.’
