PRESSURE mounted on Barclays to sever its ties with Israeli arms firms today, as growing numbers of customers joined calls to boycott the bank.
More than 1,500 people closed their accounts in protest against the bank’s “bankrolling of Israel’s genocidal attack on Palestinians,” on a boycott day spearheaded by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).
According to PSC, Barclays has invested over £1 billion in companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel and provides nine firms with over £3bn in loans and underwriting.
The companies include General Dynamics, which produces the gun systems that arm fighter jets used by Israel to bombard Gaza, and Elbit Systems, which produces armoured drones, munitions and artillery weapons used by the Israeli military.
The bank previously faced a similar boycott campaign over its financial support for South African apartheid. It was eventually forced to divest in 1986.
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