ARMS dealers will be forced to walk through a barrage of protesters against their complicity in the “Gaza genocide” as they met for their annual “swanky dinner” in a London hotel this evening.

The action will target the £250-£510 per head “prestigious event” by ADS at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House Hotel, which brings companies from across Britain’s aerospace, defence, security and space industries together for what its organisers describe as “a delightful evening of entertainment, dinner and networking.”

Attendees have not been announced ahead of the event, which is set to begin after the Morning Star publishes this article, but previous dinners have included dozens of MPs, including senior government ministers.

Sponsors include companies such as BAE Systems, which provides components for the F35 combat aircraft that are currently used by Israel in the bombardment of Gaza.

Ahead of the action organised by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), the group’s Emily Apple said: “This is a vile event aimed at enabling arms dealers to sell more weapons and fuel conflict across the world.

“Marketing this event as ‘delightful’ is outrageous. There is nothing delightful about enabling genocide and killing Palestinian children.

“The very people attending this dinner are complicit in war crimes. They are dining on the profits of genocide.

“However, the protest will ensure the evening is far from delightful for these merchants of death, and will remind them of the consequences of their murderous deals.”

Since 2015, Britain has licenced over £487 million worth of arms to Israel.

In December, Foreign Secretary David Cameron recommended continuing arms sales to the country despite previous Foreign Office assessments of “serious concerns” about its breaches of international law.

Protesters have been targeting arms manufacturing factories across Britain to shut down weapons production and end Britain’s complicity in the attacks.

Today, more than 200 Palestine Action supporters, members of Manchester PCS union, and campaigners from London and Birmingham blocked entrances to Israeli-owned Elbit UAV Engines at Shenstone in Staffordshire, which manufactures drones used by the Israeli military for surveillance and attacks in Gaza.

The factory is one of four operated in Britain by Elbit.

A fifth factory at Oldham in Greater Manchester was shut down permanently by Elbit after more than a year of blockades, protests and occupations by Palestine supporters.

Sophie, of South Staffordshire Palestine Solidarity, told the Morning Star: “Elbit makes 85 per cent of Israel’s drones that are slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza right now as we speak.

“The mobilisation against Elbit is building. After 75 years of Israel’s occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, no Israeli arms factory can function on our streets.

“We won’t stop, we will grow until the biggest gunrunners and death merchants are run out of town.”

The protests coincided with Mr Cameron’s announcement today that Britain could recognise a Palestinian state before any final political agreement with Israel.

Proposing “irreversible progress” towards a two-state solution, Mr Cameron told a meeting of the Conservative Middle East Council that “as that happens, we — with allies — will look at the issue of recognising a Palestinian state, including at the United Nations.”

He said: “That could be one of the things that helps to make this process irreversible.”

The Foreign Secretary also slammed Israel for blocking humanitarian aid for the Palestinians of Gaza and said it was “ludicrous” that it was being sent back at the border.

He demanded that Israel recognise that it had failed over the last 30 years in terms of providing security for its citizens.

Only with such a recognition could progress be made, he said.

“We should be starting to set out what a Palestinian state would look like, what it would comprise, how it would work,” Mr Cameron added.

The suggestion by the resurrected ex-premier that Britain could give formal recognition to a Palestinian state during negotiations and not as part of a final peace deal seems to put the government ahead of Labour on the issue.

Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy claimed, to widespread derision, that Mr Cameron was actually following Labour’s lead on the issue, a further sign of the party’s panic at being outflanked over Gaza.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has abandoned previous party policy to immediately recognise a Palestinian state and has suggested that this would be done eventually, only with Israeli approval.