Anadolu staff
13 July 2026•Update: 13 July 2026
Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, blocked access to arms manufacturer Rheinmetall’s Berlin office on Monday, gluing themselves to entrances in protest against the company’s role in supplying weapons for Israel’s war crimes and ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The action was organized by the group Peacefully Against Genocide as part of a broader campaign against Rheinmetall’s expanding production of artillery ammunition destined for the Israeli military. Protesters accuse the German defense giant and the German government of actively enabling what they describe as a decades-long apartheid occupation, the genocide in Gaza, and Israel’s attacks on Lebanon.
Thunberg, who joined the blockade, issued a statement condemning the company’s plans to build a new factory in Berlin.
“They are planning to build another arms factory which will produce ammunition which will be sent to Israel and arm them during the ongoing genocide, an apartheid occupation that has been going on for decades and also their attacks on Lebanon,” she said.
“We are doing this because it is our duty to protest against injustice and to stand up against genocide,” Thunberg added. “During a genocide, states and institutions have a legal duty to end the complicity which means ending arms transfers, cutting ties with genocidal states such as Israel and that's why we are stepping up to do the job that governments are not doing for us.”
Police eventually moved in to break up the protest, arresting dozens of demonstrators. Several were taken into custody.
Rheinmetall’s Berlin facility, which was previously focused on automotive parts, has been increasingly repurposed since last summer to manufacture components for artillery ammunition. Critics say the shift makes the company — and by extension Germany — directly complicit in Israel’s military campaign, which has been widely condemned for its scale of civilian casualties and war crimes in Gaza.
Protesters are demanding that Rheinmetall immediately halt all production linked to Israel and shut down the facility. The group has vowed to continue its actions against the company’s operations in Berlin.
