Marseille dockers refuse to load ammunition bound for Israel

Dockworkers at the southern French port of Fos-sur-Mer have blocked the shipment of a container reportedly containing military equipment bound for Israel, citing humanitarian concerns over the war in Gaza.

The CGT, a hard-left union representing dockworkers and port staff, said the cargo includes 19 pallets of ammunition belt links manufactured by Marseille-based Eurolinks, a company that produces components for automatic weapons.

“We will not load it on to the vessel bound for Haifa,” the CGT declared in a statement, after locating the container with the help of several activist networks, Caliber.Az reports via foreign media. 

“These Eurolinks links are spare parts for machine guns used by the Israeli army to continue the massacre of the Palestinian population,” the union said. “The port of Marseille-Fos must not be used to supply the Israeli army... dockworkers and port employees at the Gulf of Fos will not be complicit in the ongoing genocide orchestrated by the Israeli government."

The French Armed Forces Ministry rejected the claims, telling public broadcaster FranceInfo: “France is not supplying weapons to Israel.” 

It explained that while Eurolinks’ products are assembled in Israel under a valid export licence, the finished goods are re-exported to other countries, including France. “We’re not going to deprive ourselves of either its technology or its skills,” the ministry added.

"The buyer of these parts is an Israeli arms manufacturer, one of the main suppliers to the Israeli army," Ariane Lavrilleux, a journalist at Disclose, told RFI. In March, Disclose and Marsactu reported that such weapons components were “likely to be used against civilians in the Gaza Strip.”

French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu previously confirmed that Eurolinks had sold similar parts to IMI Systems, an Israeli defence company and key supplier to the Israeli military. While Israel is only permitted to re-export the parts, Lavrilleux noted: “France has no way of checking whether or not the Israeli manufacturer is re-exporting them... There is no absolute proof that these links are being used in Gaza, but there is a serious risk insofar as we know that they are compatible with weapons used against civilians in Gaza.”

By Sabina Mammadli