A week after a shipload of killer drones made by factory workers in India were shipped from a port in India headed to Israel to bomb civilians in Gaza, a coalition of Indian trade union workers have vowed to block any future shipments from leaving the port.
According to a report by the Middle East Eye, “the Water Transport Workers Federation, an Indian trade union operating at several ports across the country has vowed not to load or offload ships carrying weapons to Israel.
“The Water Transport Workers Federation of India union organises at the 11 government owned major ports in India, of which there are 13 total. It does not organise at the Mundra Port, which is run by Adani, a company with the majority stake in the joint enterprise with Elbit Systems, the largest Israeli military manufacturer.
“In an interview with Middle East Eye on Sunday, T. Narendra Rao, general secretary of the Water Transport Workers Federation of India, said the union refused to be involved in any action that would add to the further suffering of Palestinians.” Rao said, “We decided, if any vessel or any ship is carrying the arms or ammunitions or weaponised cargo to Israel, we decided to boycott. We will not cooperate with that”.
Middle East Monitor reported, “Manufactured in the southern-central Indian city of Hyderabad, the Hermes 900 drones are reportedly capable of remaining airborne for over 30 hours, putting them in the class of medium-range long endurance UAVs. They are one of the four types of lethal or ‘killer’ drones that Israel uses.
‘The Wire’ news service in India reported, “The sale more of than 20 Hermes 900 medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAVs to Israel – first reported on February 2 by Neelam Mathews for the well-regarded defence-related website Shephard Media – has not yet been publicly acknowledged by either Tel Aviv or New Delhi but sources at Adani, communicating off the record as they are not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed to The Wire last week that the export had indeed taken place.”
The Water Transport Workers Federation released a statement on 14 February, saying that they would refuse to load any ships with weapons bound for Israel, and that they “would always stand against the war and killing innocent people like women and children”.
“Women and children have been blown to pieces in the war. Parents were unable to recognise their children killed in bombings that were exploding everywhere,” the statement added.
Since 7 October, more than 28,990 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombardment, artillery shelling and drone strikes. Nearly half of all these casualties are children.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been a major supporter of Israel and the US, including manufacturing weapons for both countries and engaging in a ‘strategic partnership’ with Israel since 2018.
India under Modi has followed Israel’s example in the destruction of mosques – demolishing the Mariyam Mosque and Abdul Razzaq Zakariya school on February 10th in Uttarakhand province in the north of India, killing six people in the clashes that followed the mosque’s destruction.
