Peace activists stage mass die-in at arms factory to protest a year of genocide

Peace activists staged a mass die-in event at weapons manufacturer General Dynamics’ site in Hastings on Friday 4 October to protest a year of Israeli genocide. The ‘One Year of Bloodshed’ action was led by the Hastings & District Palestine Solidarity Campaign (HDPSC), part of a year-long sustained campaign against the company which they accuse of ‘profiting from Israeli war crimes’. HDPSC Chair, Katy Colley, reports.

Over 40 activists lay down in the car park of the site on Castleham Road and their bodies were chalked round while the sound of sirens and bombing played overhead.

At the same time, demonstrators held large banners that read ‘Stop Arming Israel’, ‘End the Genocide’ and ‘Genocide Dynamics’.

It was the ninth time in the past year the group has led an action at one of the two General Dynamics sites in Hastings and, as noted in speeches during the rally, the company shuts down its operations every time the protestors are there.

This die-in was a powerful and sombre reminder of the thousands of innocent lives taken by Israel in the past year.

We mourn over 41,000 men, women and children who have been brutally slaughtered by Israel in the past 12 months, killed by bombs made by General Dynamics. Now the occupation forces are murdering Lebanese in their thousands too. It is beyond appalling. We are here to demand an immediate end to all arm sales to Israel.

During the two-hour event there were speeches, poems and songs by community members including from Hastings and District Trades Council Chair Simon Hester, Leah Levane from Hastings Jews for Justice, HDPSC officers Laurie Holden and Grace Lally, longtime peace activist Jennifer Bell, and Phil Colley, who stood for the Worker’s Party in the 2024 Hastings & Rye Parliamentary election.

Jackie Collins from the HDPSC gave a moving tribute to the Palestinian poet and professor Refaat Alareer, who was murdered in Gaza on 7 December 2023 by a missile strike on his sister’s apartment, killing the academic, his brother and sister as well as four of her children.

Refaat had been a much-loved educator in Gaza, inspiring a generation of English students to tell their stories to the world. He wrote many essays, poems and stories and his 2011 poem: ‘If I Must Die.’ has become an iconic expression of hope and solidarity throughout the past year, translated into over 40 languages and shared worldwide.

If I Must Die by Refaat Alareer (1979 – 2023)

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—

and bid no one farewell

not even to his flesh

not even to himself—

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale

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