US arms firm secures ban on Palestine protests in Britain

A US arms firm has launched legal action against pro-Palestine activists in Britain, it can be revealed.

Court documents show Moog, which makes military aircraft parts and has links to Israel’s arms trade, applied for an injunction in September to prevent protests at its UK sites.

The application, which was granted by the High Court, sought to stop “persons unknown” who “for the purpose of protest enter occupy or remain on” the firm’s facilities across Britain.

Moog returned to court earlier this month and obtained a wider injunction to cover interference with “access to or egress from that land and premises”.

This means protesters are barred from blocking traffic around entrances and exits and face risk of arrest on public land adjacent to the company’s sites.

Moog requested the injunction after its factory in Wolverhampton was targeted by a direct-action group named “Palestinian Martyrs for Justice”.

In August, four members of that group crashed through the factory’s gates and smashed its rooftop, allegedly causing over £1m in damage.

The activists accused Moog of supplying Israel’s largest arms firm Elbit Systems with aircraft parts “used to train Israeli pilots to fly F-16 and F-35 fighter jets”.

Declassified and The Ditch had previously exposed how Moog sent at least ten shipments of trainer aircraft parts from Wolverhampton to an Elbit Systems site in Israel between December 2024 and July 2025.

Moog did not respond to our requests for comment at the time but Declassified appears no fewer than 44 times in the company’s first witness statements to the court.

The company went so far as to consult with Staffordshire police about Declassified’s work before our investigation had even been published, the documents show.

Amnesty International said it was “seriously concerned by the development of so-called ‘persons unknown injunctions’ by the British courts, and their impact on peaceful protest rights”.

Its UK law and human rights director Tom Southerden told Declassified: “Such injunctions are routinely issued for companies, landowners and public authorities without any opposition, anyone putting the counter arguments or anyone testing the evidence that the applicants seek to rely on.

“They bring with them hugely inflated punishments for acts of protest, as breaching them constitutes contempt of court.

“Potentially even worse are the financial risks faced by anyone caught up in them, who face the prospect of having to pay the legal costs of major multinational corporations, leading to people losing their homes and being made bankrupt.

“These injunctions are created solely to intimidate people into not protesting and urgently need to be curtailed”.

Declassified

Moog’s witness statement implies that Declassified bears responsibility for pro-Palestine direct-action campaigns against arms firms in Britain.

To this end, the company urged the court to issue the injunction because Declassified has published investigations into Moog’s links to the Israeli arms industry.

“Prior to its proscription, there was a clear pattern of UK-based companies being targeted by protests from Palestine Action and other pro-Palestinian organisations, particularly after being named in Declassified”, the witness statement says.

It goes on to note how protests took place across several BAE Systems sites in December 2023, weeks after Declassified had published an article “alleging that BAE manufactured key parts for the F-35 fighter jets being used to support strikes on Gaza”.

Moog curiously omits how it is common knowledge that BAE Systems produces key parts for F-35s because it is stated on its own website.

Moog also attempts to construct a timeline between a Declassified report on 8 May 2025 and Elbit-owned Instro Precision being targeted by Palestine Action later that month.

“Following publication of the article, there was a… Palestine Action attack aimed at Instro Precision on 29 May 2025. In this instance, Palestine Action targeted the registered London address of Discovery Park”, the witness statement reads.

But this was far from the first time that activists had protested Instro Precision, with trade unions demonstrating at the factory in October 2023 and Palestine Action targeting the company in June 2024.

Moog did not approach Declassified for comment before issuing its request for an injunction, thereby offering no opportunity to respond to its claims.

The company also omitted from its witness statement that Declassified not only approached the company for comment via email but also offered a right of reply over the phone.

While Moog refused to comment, its witness statement reveals that Declassified’s approaches were shared with Staffordshire police before our article had even been published.

“On 4 July 2025, a police officer from South Staffordshire… visited the site, reviewed the email sent from Mr McEvoy at Declassified, discussed safety at the Wolverhampton Site in the event of a protest”, the document notes.

‘Specific allegations’

In its witness statement, Moog does not attempt to refute Declassified’s reporting, saying it would not be company policy “to respond to any of the specific allegations made… in the Article”.

The firm nonetheless says it does not “accept the characterisation of Moog’s business activities in the Article and, in particular, the link it attempts to make with the situation in Gaza”.

It is unclear on what specific basis Moog is trying to distance itself from “the situation in Gaza”.

But cargo documents show, since December 2024, the company has exported M-346 Lavi components to an Elbit Systems factory in Israel as well as to the country’s ministry of defence.

The M-346 Lavi is a high-performance aircraft designed to train Israeli pilots to fly advanced fighter jets including the F-16 and F-35.

Trade minister Chris Bryant attempted to justify the export of these parts to Israel last month, saying: “The assessment is that the training of an aircraft pilot on such equipment would take so long that they wouldn’t be the people that would be engaged in fighter combat in Gaza”.

But this claim is refuted by the Jerusalem Post, which says “cadets… spend six months training in the Lavi advanced fighter instruction aircraft during their Operational and Advanced Operational Training Course”.

A US air force report also recently estimated that it could take just four to six months to train Ukrainian fighter pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets. These same aircraft have been used by Israeli forces in Gaza, including in an attack on British doctors in January 2024.

Damage

Moog’s witness statement also details the financial impact of the direct-action campaign at its Wolverhampton factory.

The company says 95% of the solar panels on the roof were “destroyed at an estimated approximate value of £700,000”.

The entire system was therefore “inoperable, meaning that Moog will be liable for the loss of energy generation and will need to procure electricity off the grid”.

In addition, all of the windows at roof-level were smashed, and some of the skylights were destroyed.

“This caused broken glass to fall into the offices and work-spaces below”, with damage also caused to the front gates, metal plate ladder guard, carpets, and chairs.

It could therefore “take several weeks before the facility can become fully operational again”, with employees “forced to work from home as Moog works through the cleanup process”.

The direct-action campaign also had knock-on effects for Moog’s contractual arrangements.

The company said it had “issues with meeting supply contracts on time, including the supply of components for ultimate use by the MoD”.

It added that “there is potential reputational damage for Moog if customers conclude that Moog’s ability to supply components on time… could be compromised by its susceptibility to disruption caused by unlawful protest activity”.

Ultimately, Moog estimated that the total financial loss caused by the incident to be “between circa £1,250,000 to £2,000,000”.

The firm reported a gross profit of almost $1bn last year.