Targeting Britain’s war industry

The company has been under pressure from British activists since it was revealed that its helmet-mounted display systems were used by the Israeli military. During Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon, when the state was accused of a number of human rights abuses including the bombing of an ambulance, Brimar's director David Eldridge admitted to that the company's systems are used for the American-made, Israeli-operated Apache helicopters.

"If British companies are prevented from supplying the Boeing Apaches because they'll get sent onwards to Israel, is that going to stop them from being sent? Of course not, they'll just move on to other suppliers and it would make no difference beyond hurting British business," Eldridge told the Guardian newspaper at the time.

The Israeli military has also used Apaches for attacks in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. This includes extra-judicial "targeted assassinations," like those of Tanzim leader Hussain Abayat near Bethlehem in 2000 and Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the wheelchair-bound spiritual leader of Hamas, in Gaza in March 2004.

Moreover, Amnesty International published a report in July detailing the human rights abuses committed in Gaza during Israel's recent winter invasion. This included the killing of three paramedics and the 12-year-old boy who was showing them where to find two wounded men. The four were killed by an Israeli-fired missile marked AGM-114 -- the designation for a US-made Hellfire missile. The bodies of those killed could not be recovered for two days, as those trying to collect them came under further fire from Israeli troops.

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