At 5:00 a.m. on November 10, four hundred trade unionists and Palestine solidarity activists converged on an unassuming industrial estate in Rochester, Kent. They had come in early morning to blockade the gates of BAE Systems, a prominent British defense and aerospace company.

The company makes 13 to 15 percent of the parts for F-35 stealth combat jets. These aircraft are currently being used in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza that has already killed at least eleven thousand people, of whom over 4,500 are children or teenagers. The trade unionists and activists, who call themselves Workers for Palestine, blockaded a site that manufactures the active interceptor system for the jets that allows the pilot to direct the plane.

The protesters blocked vehicles and turned workers away at the gates, explaining the reasons for their presence. Sonali, a writer and trade unionist who was part of the blockade, told Jacobin that she was moved to act because “we have seen carpet bombing of one of the most densely populated places on earth, where around 50 percent of the population are under eighteen. People who have no army. What we’re seeing is not self-defense; it is the most barbaric collective punishment.”