At breakfast time on November 9th, 2025, 29-year-old Teuta Hoxha became the fifth prisoner to join the Prisoners for Palestine rolling hunger strike, marking a further escalation in a protest that began on November 2nd.
Hoxha, currently held at Peterborough prison, was arrested in a dawn raid by counter-terrorism police on November 19th 2024, accused of involvement in an action targeting Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems’ site at Filton, Bristol. Like the other members of the so-called Filton 24, she was held and interrogated under the Terrorism Act but not charged with any terrorist offence. She has already been imprisoned for nearly a year but is not expected to face trial until mid 2026.
Originally held at Bronzefield prison, Hoxha was subjected to a sudden transfer to HMP Peterborough on the day that MPs voted to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group. Following proscription, like the other pro-Palestine prisoners, Hoxha experienced an escalation in her mistreatment, which eventually forced her to undertake a hunger protest in August. She won her demands at the time, after more than three weeks without food.
International Solidarity Raises Profile
Two international activists have now announced their participation, significantly raising the profile of the protest. Italian anarchist Luca Dolce, held in Sanremo, Italy, and American Black community organiser Jakhi McCray, currently awaiting trial in New York, both declared they will be joining the hunger strike in acts of solidarity.
The international dimension of the strike has drawn increased attention to the protest, which now involves five UK prisoners: Qesser Zuhrah, Amu Gibb and Jon Cink at Bronzefield prison, Heba Muraisi at New Hall prison, and now Hoxha at Peterborough prison. The strike centres on a short list of demands, including immediate bail, the right to a fair trial, and the permanent shuttering of all Elbit systems’ sites and its subsidiaries in the UK.
The Campaign Against Elbit Systems
The hunger strike represents the latest development in a sustained, five-year campaign against Elbit Systems in the UK. Since July 2020, there has been a relentless direct-action campaign against the Israeli arms manufacturer, targeting Elbit facilities with occupations, paint attacks, and actions that have rendered buildings inoperable.
Activists claim several successes from their direct actions. In 2022, Elbit sold its Ferranti factory in Oldham, Manchester, after years of sustained actions, and abandoned its London headquarters in Kingsway following 15 separate actions between 2020 and 2022. The sustained pressure has resulted in a growing list of companies severing ties with Elbit, including Fisher German (property managers for UAV Engines factory), Hydrafeed (which ceased all sales and services to Elbit subsidiaries), Complete Business Solutions, and Guardtech. Campaigners view each factory closure and supplier as a tangible reduction in Elbit’s capacity to produce weapons used in Ghazzah and beyond.
What Elbit Systems Produces
Elbit Systems Ltd., headquartered in Haifa, is Israel’s largest privately-owned arms manufacturer. The company produces unmanned aircraft systems (drones), electro-optics hardware, electronic warfare systems, signal intelligence systems, munitions, combat vehicles, and cybersecurity technologies. Elbit manufactures 85% of the drones used by the Israeli Air Force and 85% of the Israel Defence Force’s land-based equipment.
The company has a documented history of producing weapons considered illegal or controversial under international humanitarian law. Elbit is associated with the production of white phosphorus munitions and flechette projectiles – anti-personnel weapons that fire thousands of small metal darts that are indiscriminate and particularly deadly to civilians. The company has also been a primary contractor for Israel’s apartheid wall in the West Bank, which was deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004.
The war in Ghazzah has proven extraordinarily profitable for Elbit Systems. In the third quarter of 2024, the company posted a nearly 30% increase from the same period the previous year. For the full year 2024, Elbit reported a doubling of sales to the Israeli Occupation Forces.
Secret Government Meetings and Interference
Perhaps most alarmingly, Freedom of Information Act disclosures have revealed multiple secret meetings between UK government officials and Elbit representatives, raising serious concerns about foreign interference in UK domestic prosecutions and the erosion of judicial independence.
In December 2024, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s Home Office held a private meeting with three Elbit representatives. The Home Office refused to detail which officials were present or what was discussed.
In September 2024, the Attorney General’s Office shared contact details for the Crown Prosecution Service and SO15 Counter Terrorism Command with the Israeli Embassy. This occurred just one month after ten activists were arrested under terrorism legislation (although never charged with terrorism offences) following a protest at Elbit’s Bristol site. An email sent by Nicola Smith, head of international law at the Attorney General’s Office, to Israel’s Deputy Ambassador Daniela Grudsky Ekstein carried the subject line ‘Contacts CPS/SO15.’ While the content was redacted, the timing raised profound concerns about foreign interference in UK domestic prosecutions.
In April 2023, Policing Minister Chris Philp attended a meeting with representatives from Elbit, the National Police Coordination Centre, and the Home Office. Kelby Halmes, director and deputy of the Attorney General’s Office, was also present to represent the Crown Prosecution Service to ‘preserve its operational independence’, which some see as a paradoxical statement given his very attendance. The stated goal was to reassure Elbit Systems UK that the Government was alert to the impact of the campaign against Elbit and would take the necessary steps to curtail it.
In March 2022, then Home Secretary Priti Patel met privately with Martin Fausset, CEO of Elbit Systems UK, to discuss security. The purpose was to reassure Fausset that the protest acts against Elbit Systems UK were being taken seriously by Government. Patel went on to suggest a series of possible responses, which were entirely redacted in the disclosed documents.
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In August 2020, then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab met with Orit Farkash-Hacohen, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs. Farkash-Hacohen pressed Raab on stopping direct action protests against Elbit, noting the London offices had by then been attacked four times in four weeks. Raab told her the British government were committed to ending the protests.
Leaked police files also revealed that Elbit Systems UK had its own intelligence cell and shared information with the police across the country on a two-weekly basis.
Recent UK Government Contracts
Despite the controversies and evidence of war crimes facilitation, the UK government has continued awarding contracts to Elbit. In August 2025, it was revealed that the Ministry of Defence was close to awarding a 15-year, £2.5 billion contract to a consortium headed by Elbit Systems UK. The Army Collective Training Service contract would make Elbit a ‘strategic training partner’ responsible for training 60,000 British soldiers annually through ‘advanced simulation, digitalisation and new industry partnerships.’
In September 2025, The Times reported a former British military officer allegedly ‘broke Ministry of Defence rules’ when he shared information with Elbit as it prepared for the £2.5 billion contract.
Other recent procurements include a £16 million contract to provide night vision goggles to British Armed Forces, and £57 million contract for simulation-based tank crew training.
According to data from Tussell, Elbit Systems has won 25 UK government contracts since 2012. The potential £2.5 billion training contract, if awarded in late 2025, would represent the largest UK government deal with Elbit to date and would entrench the company at the heart of Britain’s military infrastructure for 15 years.
“Our complicity [in the genocide] is rooted in our deep, financial ties to Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems,” said Steve, who spent 19 years in the Royal Air Force, and is now a campaigner, and activist with a solid understanding of Elbit.
Steve continued: “Since 2012, Elbit has secured contracts totalling more than £355 million. Elbit is not a passive partner – its technology, like the Hermes 450, has been battle-tested in Ghazzah. And now, the government wants to go deeper.”
Then he asked the question many are asking: “Why is my government preparing to use my taxpayer money to fund the machinery of conflict? Why is it deepening its reliance on a company that profits directly from the destruction in Ghazzah?”
I asked Steve about the campaign to end the UK’s murky relationship with Elbit.
“The most alarming sign of complicity is the government’s response to peaceful protest. When citizens stand up and take direct action against this industrial complicity, they are met with the full force of the state. There are currently 33 prisoners held on remand in this country for non-violent direct action against Elbit Systems.”
Steve ended our conversation with a disturbing conclusion: “They [the activists] are facing up to two years behind bars without a conviction – a clear breach of the pre-trial custody time limit. They are citizens who dared to interrupt the production of the military-industrial complex. Their imprisonment is a tool of intimidation, designed to silence all of us who question the government’s close relationship with the arms trade.”
Government Silence on Historic Strike
The UK government has not formally acknowledged the rolling hunger strike, despite it possibly becoming the biggest in the country’s 210-year prison history. The silence from officials stands in stark contrast to the revealed pattern of private meetings and ‘reassurances’ given to Elbit representatives.
The revelations of collusion between Elbit and the British government raise profound questions about democratic accountability, judicial independence, and the extent to which Western governments have become complicit in facilitating war crimes. As the hunger strike continues and the death toll in Ghazzah mounts, the prisoners’ demands – including the right to a fair trial and ending the cosy conspiracy between the British state and Elbit – takes on increasing urgency.
With international solidarity growing and more prisoners potentially joining the action, the strike represents not just a protest against unjust imprisonment, but a broader challenge to the UK government’s complicity in what many describe as the transformation of Palestinian blood into Elbit profits – all at the British taxpayers’ expense.
— © 2025 Sul Nowroz – Real Media staff writer – Insta: @TheAfghanWriter
