LONDON (Reuters) -Pro-Palestinian activists targeted the British offices of German financial services firm Allianz on Tuesday, daubing the outside with red paint in protest over the company’s links to Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems.
Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the protest on social media platform X, and said demonstrators had attacked 10 Allianz offices in the UK and “occupied” the insurer’s UK headquarters in Guildford, south of London, overnight.
“Without insurance, Elbit couldn’t operate in Britain,” Palestine Action said in its post, describing Allianz as “investors and insurers of Israel’s biggest weapons firm”.
UK-based spokespeople for Allianz, one of Europe’s biggest financial services groups, did not respond to a request for comment.
Police said officers were called at 4 a.m. (0300 GMT) to reports of red paint being sprayed onto two buildings in London’s City financial district. They arrested a 19-year-old man on suspicion of criminal damage following a foot chase.
Authorities also cordoned off Allianz Commercial’s office in the City after the vandalism, which coincides with the first anniversary of the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages to Gaza on Oct. 7 last year, according to Israeli figures. Nearly 42,000 people have been killed in retaliatory attacks on Gaza since, Palestinian health authorities say, and most of the 2.3-million population has been displaced.
Besides urging customers to boycott certain financial firms, demonstrators have expanded protests to include defacing buildings using red paint to symbolise the bloodshed in Gaza.
Allianz is the latest global financial firm to have suffered such vandalism, with British lender Barclays also a frequent target for pro-Palestinian protesters.
They have also repeatedly targeted Elbit Systems UK and other defence firms in Britain linked to Israel. In August, seven people were charged with burglary and violent disorder at a warehouse linked to Elbit near Bristol, southwest England.
(Reporting by Sinead Cruise, additional reporting by Sachin Ravikumar and Sam Tobin; Editing by Susan Fenton and Mark Potter)
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