Sanction Israel protest tour targets
Israel could not carry out its genocidal onslaught in Gaza, continue its use of starvation as a weapon of war, and pursue Trumpʼs plan to displace Gazaʼs population, without trade, arms and intelligence provided by its allies.
So, on 12 July 2025, Stop the War on Palestine held a protest tour of genocide-collaborating companies to call for sanctions on Israel.
Australia continues to export components that are used in Israelʼs F-35 fighter jets. BAE Systems, one of the targets on the protest tour, holds contracts for Australian-produced F-35 components. Maersk, another target on the tour, is a major shipper of arms to Israel, including from the U.S. Department of Defense.
The Israel Defense Forces have also been photographed with the lethal R400 weapon system from Canberra-based company Electro Optic Systems, and the Dronegun MK4 weapon system made by Australian company Droneshield. Australiaʼs exports to Israel in 2024 totalled around $212m and included supplies of vital resources like coal.
The protest also marched on the Defence Department to demand Australia immediately end two-way arms trade with Israel, including trade in weapons components, to sever all economic ties with Israel, end the supply of intelligence to Israel via the Pine Gap spy base and expel the Israeli ambassador.
British Aerospace Engineering (BAE) Systems
BAE Systems is one of the world's largest arms manufacturers and a key supplier to the Israeli military. Its weapons and targeting systems contribute to Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians and destruction of Palestinian infrastructure and housing.
Australia is a member of the global F-35 Joint Strike Fighter partnership and BAE is the principal partner in the F-35 program in Australia. BAE produces or maintains key components for F-35 jets, including elements of its communication, navigation and identification system, flares and magazines and active interceptor system components. Every F-35 used by Israel to drop bombs on Gaza, Lebanon or Iran includes components manufactured by BAE in Australia, and globally BAE is responsible for about 15% of work on each F-35.
However, Australia’s military links with BAE Systems go beyond the F-35 partnership. The Department of Defence maintains longstanding multi-billion-dollar contracts with BAE for deadly weapons systems, warships and combat aircraft. BAE proudly describes itself as “the only industry partner of the Department of Defence with established in-country engineering capabilities to design, prototype, manufacture, sustain and integrate complex weapons systems”, boasting of its “rich history of collaboration with global defence companies”. By continuing to fund and work with BAE, the Australian government is fuelling a global weapons supply chain that enables genocide.
Department of Defence
The Australian Department of Defence has played a direct role in enabling the genocide in Gaza through its two-way arms trade with Israel.
Australia provides both weapons parts and standalone weapons to Israel and has awarded major local contracts to Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.
Australia is a member of the global F-35 Joint Strike Fighter partnership. Alongside purchasing F-35s for Australia’s own fleet, the partnership allows Australian companies to participate in the global supply chains for F-35s.
Despite the assertions by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong that Australia does not sell weapons to Israel, the Australian Government has expressly allowed the export of these fighter jet parts for assembly and maintenance. In October 2023, the RAAF bragged that more than 70 Australian companies had shared more than $413 billion in contracts for F-35 production and sustainment.
IDF commanders were recently photographed posing with the lethal R400 weapon system made by Canberra-based Electro Optic Systems and the DroneGun Mk4 weapons system made by Australian company Droneshield. The company noted on its website, “[the] Australian Government supports DroneShield as a sovereign solution provider as global tensions continue to escalate” and accompanied this statement with a photo of a smiling Anthony Albanese holding a DroneGun Mk4.
In February 2024, the Department of Defence awarded a five-year, $917 million contract to Elbit Systems to assist in the development of Infantry Fighting Vehicles for the Australian Defence Forces (ADF). Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer and is a key supplier of the armed drones and surveillance and targeting systems used against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank on a daily basis. Elbit makes enormous profits directly from its role in the genocide, selling its “battle-tested” weapons and technology globally.
Maersk Shipping
Danish shipping giant Maersk plays a critical role in the F-35 global supply chain and Israel’s war economy, and until pressure from the “Mask off Maersk” campaign forced a change in policy, Maersk also supported illegal West Bank settlements by transporting goods to and from the settlements.
In June Maersk announced plans to end its business dealings with companies connected to Israeli settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank, following a sustained campaign led by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and growing scrutiny over corporate complicity in war crimes. Just one month earlier at Maersk’s AGM, the board opposed and shareholders voted against a resolution that proposed stopping arms shipments to Israel. Maersk categorically denies shipping weapons or ammunition to Israel, but Maersk is one of the logistics partners to the global F-35 program. Research by PYM shows that Maersk has shipped the wings for every Israeli F-35 since 2022, and that between December 2019 and January 2025, Maersk made over 1,000 shipments of F-35 equipment from the Fort Worth, Texas Lockheed Martin Aeronautics site and the Palmdale, California Northrop Grumman site - many of these shipments going to the IDF or Israeli defence companies like Elbit systems.
Investigative journalism group Danwatch has obtained bills of lading that show that more than a dozen Maersk ships have carried thousands of tonnes of militarily-useful goods to Israel since October 2023, including armor-equipped Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks (HEMTTs) which have been used by the IDF in Gaza for logistics and prisoner transport. The tabloid Ekstra Bladet also identified nine bills of lading for explosive munitions and parts thereof, four for cannon parts, and 31 for cartridge components.
Across the world, dockworkers, protesters and even governments have taken a stand against Maersk’s role in Israel’s military supply chain, but Maersk continues to operate in Australian ports with no government scrutiny. In November 2024 the Spanish government blocked Maersk ships from docking at Spanish ports, and in April this year dockworkers in Morocco and France refused to load or service Maersk ships delivering F-35 parts to the Israeli military. In the absence of restrictions on weapons shipments from Australia, it is highly likely Australian exports are contributing to breaches of international law.
Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
BCG played a central role in designing and setting up the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the widely condemned, US-Israeli backed “aid organisation” that operates militarised aid distribution sites in Gaza – watched over by Israeli soldiers –where starving Palestinians are forced to queue for hours behind barbed wire fences to access food and aid. Since beginning operation in May this year, over 700 Palestinians, including many children, have been killed and more than 4,891 injured at GHF’s distribution sites.
On top of destroying almost all of Gaza’s infrastructure, Israel has blocked all food, medicine, aid and essential supplies from entering Gaza since March, leading to widespread famine. It cut off access and supplies to the over 400 localised distribution sites which functioned during the brief ceasefire and replaced them with just four distribution sites operated by GHF. Amnesty International has said, “All the evidence gathered, including testimonies…from victims and witnesses, suggest that the GHF was designed so as to placate international concerns while constituting another tool of Israel’s genocide.” GHF’s aid channels put the distribution of food under Israeli military guard, giving Palestinians in Gaza the choice between starving and risking being shot.
Israeli backers contracted BCG through an intermediary to build a complex financial model for “post war” Gaza, with scenarios including a “voluntary relocation” of Palestinians from Gaza, echoing Trump’s shocking proposal – lauded by Netanyahu – to relocate the Gazan population to other countries. The model projected that relocating Palestinians outside Gaza would cost $23,000 less per person than supporting them in Gaza while the area was reconstructed, and assumed that three quarters of those relocated would never return to Gaza. With this model, BCG essentially calculates a detailed plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
The Australian Department of Defence has a longstanding relationship with BCG, spending close to $30 million on their advisory and computer services since October 2023. BCG is similarly closely embedded in both the US and Israeli war bureaucracies, and the Australian government needs to sever the ties with a company that has proven itself to be part of the infrastructure of Israel’s genocide.