PALESTINE Action has targeted 11 Barclays sites including branches, call centres and offices over the bank’s complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Activists smashed windows at premises from Edinburgh to Kent, dousing the buildings in blood-red paint.

They have vowed to continue their actions until Barclays cease their investments in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons firm.

A joint investigation by Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and War on Want found that the bank holds £2.7 million of shares in the arms firm, which provides 85 per cent of the Israeli military’s drone fleet. 

The report found that the bank holds over £2 billion in shares, and provides £6.1bn in loans and underwriting, to nine companies whose weapons, components and military technology are being used by Israel in its attacks on Palestinians.

After 20 branches were targeted in the last wave of action in June, Barclays CEO CS Venkatakrishnan wrote an article in the Guardian claiming that the bank was “deeply sympathetic about the overall suffering in the region” and pleaded for the sites to be left alone.

Palestine Action said in a statement: “Barclays’ investments are contributing to the wholesale destruction of Gaza, the erasure of Palestinian life and property.

“These banks choose to invest in manufacturers of genocide. They have evaluated that the continued returns on investment generated by Elbit Systems and Israel's war machine are worth more than the moral or political cost of dealing in war crimes. 

“Palestine Action will continue to take action to recalibrate that cost-benefit analysis: reducing the profitability of any operation doing business with Israel’s arms trade.”