We, the undersigned, urge you to vote with your conscience and reject L3Harris Planning Application BH2023/ 03236.

L3Harris Release and Integration Solutions Ltd (i.e. L3 Harris Brighton) is equipping US supplied F-16s and F-35s, currently being used by the Israeli apartheid state to commit genocide against the people of Gaza.

The parts developed and manufactured in Brighton - more specifically, on Home Farm Industrial estate off Lewes Road - enable Israeli pilots to drop their bombs on the Palestinian people of Gaza, who have no way to escape the genocide being committed against them. L3Harris Brighton has been awarded contracts worth millions of dollars to equip these F-16 and F-35 Israeli war planes. It is without a doubt that L3Harris Brighton are complicit in and are profiting from the genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes being committed right now by Israeli military forces in Gaza.

The attacks on the Palestinan people have been deemed by many international bodies to be acts of genocide and there are widespread calls for all UK arm sales to Israel to be suspended. Examples include a recent letter from 600 UK based lawyers, academics and retired senior judges and statements from MPs across the political spectrum.

These calls follow a precedent set by the Hague Court of Appeal which ordered the Dutch government on the 12 February 2024 to to stop supplying F35 fighter jet parts to Israel. The judge concluded, based on numerous reports by the UN and organisations like Anmesty, that many civilians (including children) were being specifically targeted.

As councillors, you have a legal and moral obligation to prevent and/or avoid complicity in genocide or violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. We ask you, as our elected representatives, to take human rights and humanitarian concerns into account, to vote with your conscience and to firmly reject L3Harris’ planning application.