The Third Filton Trial (continued)

We welcome Em Colquhoun as guest contributor (along with thanks to note-takers in the court) to continue our coverage of the current Palestine Action Filton trial at Woolwich Crown Court. Em is a writer, editor and photographer from Hull, UK, best known for writing about the late Mark Fisher. She blogs at xenogothic.com. If you missed the story of the trial so far, you can catch up in our previous article here. (Main image: Composite from Filton images by ©Just.Barold)

The case is being heard by HH Judge Lees, with chief barrister for the prosecution Deanna Heer KC, and lead defence barrister Garry Green KC.

The fifth week of the trial saw the defence opening its case on the morning of Monday 26th October. The first defendant to take the stand was Qesser Zuhrah. Garry Green KC, for the defence, asked Zuhrah various questions and led her through the evidence bundle.

Before Zuhrah gave evidence, it was established as an ‘agreed fact’ that the account given by security guard Nigel Shaw of the events at Filton in Bristol were in conflict with CCTV footage and that he was not a reliable witness. The jury were also instructed not to hold any prejudice against Zuhrah if they were aware of the proscription of Palestine Action (which happened a year after the matters on trial) or if she appeared to be fidgeting while on the stand.

Zuhrah took the oath and told the court a bit about her background. Now 21 years of age, she was 19 at the time of her arrest. In the few years before, and when she was attending 6th form college, Zuhrah described her life as “difficult”, but she nonetheless left school with 10 GCSEs and 4 A Levels.

Already taking an interest in politics, Zuhrah explained how she took part in various school-affiliated projects related to contemporary politics. Getting involved in more local issues, she also volunteered with her local council, presenting her ideas on how to tackle food poverty and gang culture among her peers. At around the same time, Zuhrah travelled alone to Nepal to volunteer at a school for children with Down’s syndrome and disabilities, helping to furnish the building with new carpeting, lighting, and sourcing school uniforms. She explained that much of her volunteering work centred around social justice.

“When you’ve known pain intimately and you’ve lived it and suffered, it’s something you’d never wish on anyone else,” Zuhrah said. “To know the details of such suffering,” acting to alleviate social injustice is “like a reflex response.”

Zuhrah also explained that, as a Pakistani she had long taken an interest in womens’ rights in South Asian communities, addressing issues such as ‘honour killings’ and young women being encouraged into arranged marriages. It was during her research into these issues that Zuhrah was first introduced to the idea of colonisation, learning about the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. This led her to also learn about the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and the injustices of colonialism elsewhere.

In September 2023, Zuhrah began studying social sciences at University College London. She was interested in understanding the relationships and interactions between different communities and societies. It was during the first week of teaching in October 2023 that “the genocide [in Palestine] began”, Zuhrah added. “All of my professors started incorporating Gaza into their lectures,” she said. “I felt like I was getting a crash course in every single lecture.” Zuhrah was taught “the most simple facts of history – for example, in [a module on the subject of] ‘Race and Ethnicity’, we learned about the links between racism and Zionism.” She immediately drew parallels between the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and what she knew of the South African struggle against apartheid.

Zuhrah said that she felt “very strongly” about what was happening in Palestine. “I was watching video after video on social media coming from Gaza, showing their dead for the world to see, for the world to care.”

In every university assignment, she decided to try and talk about Palestine, writing articles about the history [of the occupation]. She said that in the beginning she didn’t know what to do, but was learning and writing about it.

Alongside her studies, Zuhrah followed news from “Palestinian journalists on the ground, families who set up [social media] accounts to showcase their suffering.” She explained how she saw a video on Instagram about “a boy in Gaza who was 19 years old with Down’s syndrome”, which reminded her of her time in Nepal. “The Israeli army broke into his family home with a military trained dog and ordered [the] dog to attack him and maul him to death, which is what the dog did … It mauled him to death. Because of his Down’s syndrome, he didn’t know what was happening to him. He put his hand up to pet the dog and thought the dog was playing with him … I looked back to my own personal experiences … It was cruel.”

Zuhrah began attending every rally and demo related to Palestine “without fail”, she said – “every national demo, every mini protest that was happening.” In attending these protests, it was Zuhrah’s hope that the government would listen and the genocide would stop. She “signed every petition there was to sign” and emailed “every email there was to email”, including to her local MP, the foreign secretary and the then Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. When asked what she received anything in response, Zuhrah replied: “Nothing. Nothing at all.” This made her “lose trust” in the British government, she continued. She felt “complete despair and helplessness – if the government won’t do anything, how will it stop?”

Next, Zuhrah was asked about her involvement with Palestine Action. “I was on Instagram one day and a post came up and it [said], ‘Take direct action, sign up to a training day’.” She began following the social media page associated with the post and “saw the stuff that they do.” She was shocked to learn that there were Israeli weapon factories in the UK, and that they were supplying the Israeli government during a genocide. She said “That’s a war crime.”

Zuhrah told how in February 2024, she finally got the courage to sign up to a Palestine Action training day where she met her co-defendant Heba Muraisi and soon became friends. She also recognised someone who she’d seen before at national demos. It was some time later when Zuhrah met her other co-defendants – Kamran Ahmed, Liam Mullany, and Zahra Farouq.

At the training, Zuhrah heard testimonies from Palestinians describing their suffering. One Palestinian man explained that “it’s the drones, not the jets … that haunt them, that hunt them, that mutilate them.” She also learned about Elbit Systems – that it “was Israel’s largest weapons provider, providing 85% of land-based weaponry and … drones.”

Asked what she understood about Palestine Action’s activities, Zuhrah said: “it’s direct action.” Palestine Action “had a different philosophy” to many of the groups she had been involved with previously, on demos and other protests. “They said that if the weapons are here and they are going to go there, we have to stop [them].” She said “The focus was on destroying weapons that are going to kill people.” Asked whether Palestine Action’s intention was ever to harm anyone in pursuing this aim, she replied “No, never.”

Questioned about what she’d learnt about direct action, Zuhrah said “I don’t think people wake up and think, I’m going to go to a factory and destroy some weapons – it’s a process”.

She told how, on Instagram, she had seen Palestine Actionists “occupy [the] roof tops of factories and stay there for days, or blockade the factories so the workers can’t get in, or actions inside the factories”, which aimed to “find the weapons and destroy them.” She also learned about the group’s “covert” and “overt” actions.

Turning to the events of August 2024 at the Elbit Systems factory in Filton, Bristol, Zuhrah explained that “there was a red team and a black team. The red team were ‘overts’ – they knew they would be arrested. The black team didn’t want to risk arrest, but still wanted to help.” She reiterated that there was never any intention of using violence against individuals. “It undermines and distracts from the cause”, she said. “The media want a reason to villainise anything.” The use of violence would be “something clear” that would “undermine our cause”, she added.

After attending the training day, Zuhrah opted to be a ‘covert’, and she was told that she would be put in a group chat on Signal, where she would hear from a Palestine Action coordinator. The purpose of the group, she added, was to learn how to take action, and then would eventually be used to organise an action. After joining the group chat, communication was sparse, Zuhrah explained. She did not remember how many people were in the group chat, nor did she describe her coordinator as particularly proactive.

“In the beginning, I ended up initiating a lot of conversations myself”, Zuhrah said. “It was about getting to know people, their backgrounds, what brought them here.” She added that some people in the group were anxious and worried about the impact of taking direct action on their lives. “One person was a teacher, doing an important role.” The group knew that “the government could criminalise people who wanted to save lives.” She added: “case in point” – referring to the present trial.

After a break for lunch, Zuhrah returned to the stand and described how, in early March 2024, she began talking with the group more actively and earnestly about taking direct action. Asked if she was the coordinator for the action, Zuhrah replied: “No, I don’t think it’s a clearly defined role. It’s more, you want people to have a bit more agency and [be] a bit more autonomous.”

Zuhrah later offered to help with other Palestine Action training days. “I would come in [during] the second half [of the day] and speak about why I chose [to be a] ‘covert’, why I chose direct action.” Zuhrah added that should would “speak to motivate the people who [were] there, who want to take action, who have heard about the genocide raging on”.

Defence counsel Garry Green KC referred Zuhrah to the evidence bundle, and a conversation she’d had with someone, asking them if they’d like to help her on an upcoming training day, which they did. Green showed her other conversations and asked questions about her level of involvement in Palestine Action. He asked whether there was any vetting process for would-be actionists, and Zuhrah said that there wasn’t. She also said that, while she was actively involved in training days, it was never her intention to pressure anyone into doing anything they weren’t comfortable with, describing the various levels of action that people were invited to take. She explained “There’s a distinction between type 1 or 2, high level or low level”. High end actions target the factories that have the weapons, while lower level actions focus on secondary and tertiary targets – companies that support Elbit in one way or another, for instance their insurer, Allianz.

Zuhrah herself was more interested in the high-level actions that target weapons factories. “I had a series of flopped coordinated actions”, she explained, “and so I was making a joke saying that I was going to stick to the factory ones as they were better organised and less last-minute.”

Turning to Zuhrah’s messages in more detail, Green asked her about the group’s expectations leading up to the action at the factory in Filton, specifically with regards to the likely presence of security. Parts of the messages are quoted out loud: “Sometimes security are aggressive. They are violent, so what [are] your boundaries? … I’m asking this because we have had people who just surrender on the spot. It’s not good for them or the team.” Zuhrah, in her Signal messages, also emphasised the importance of physical fitness in being able to run away after a covert action.

“What were you thinking about here?” Green asked. Zuhrah explained that there had previously been some “pretty brutal incidents” when direct actionists became embroiled with security. On one occasion, “a security guard broke someone’s ribs”. On another, “a woman was dragged by her hair down a staircase”. Zuhrah explained that “it’s my responsibility to be clear that there are risks, even though we plan to avoid them entirely. I have to be honest [that] there’s a small risk of [confrontation or injury].”

In the Signal messages, Zuhrah is quoted as saying that the ‘covert’ groups “usually just run away, make lots of turns so we lose security, change into normal clothes, then take the bus or train home from wherever we are.” She told the court this was “the same thing I’ve been saying before for ‘coverts’ – there’s no intention to stick around or provoke or initiate anything – we just want to leave.” Considering what she later came to know of Elbit Systems’ security guards, she added that any presumption of an easy escape may have been “quite naïve”.

Later, Zuhrah was asked about equipment and clothing bought for the action with money raised by Palestine Action as an organisation. More messages were read out: “I’m buying ballies [balaclavas], gloves, burners [mobile phones], and stuff for the group … all black clothes and shoes they can discard … after they buy it, just message me separately and I’ll reimburse separately in cash.” Zuhrah confirmed that these purchases were her responsibilities. She said that the money came from donations made to Palestine Action by members of the public. “It’s understood the money is to support the struggle,” Zuhrah said. Occasionally, actionists used their own money to buy goods and equipment as well, she added.

Zuhrah was asked about a voice note she’d sent someone, where she described how people would be organised. Asked specifically about a comment made about the timing of her group’s interventions – “do we leave now or do we attack?” – Zuhrah clarifies that she is speaking hypothetically and “‘do we attack’ is not about people, it’s about the factory”.

On 27th April 2024, a national demonstration for Palestine took place. Zuhrah was asked about her involvement, and it was suggested that taking part in a march whilst planning direct action “looks contradictory”. “If you’re taking direct action, why march?” Zuhrah replied: “I’m still going to do everything I can – that means taking direct action, but also taking part in these marches … Be part of that, and still use my hands to try and do good … It might seem contradictory, but nothing we do will ever be enough, to be honest.”

Asked about the people she encountered when organising and training for Palestine Action, Zuhrah said they were people from all walks of life … students, teachers, carers, as well as parents. She said that this was “not a surprise” – “with everything the world was witnessing as the genocide began, I guess if you’re watching children being shredded on your [phone] screen and you have children [of your own], you’re going to look at them [the children of Gaza]” in that context.

Zuhrah was again asked about her responsibilities. She confirmed that she helped “coordinate the [Type 2] actions, factory attacks – plan, get resources, organise training, etc.” It is noted that, in most Palestine Action units, the coordinators do not themselves take part in the actions. “You say you do.” “Yes,” Zuhrah replied.

“You say that you don’t want to sit back and relax while your team’s in the field, you say the factories we target are arms and weapons factories, specifically the ones that supply Israel – is that what you believed about Elbit?” Green asked. “That it is an Israeli factory?”

Zuhrah told the court how Elbit drones “get loaded with bombs” and that the Israeli military then “goes and drops them over civilians – it’s not just a wild guess that they are going to be used in Gaza – Elbit says that they are ‘battle-tested’ on Palestinians.”

Zuhrah was asked when she became involved in the organisation of the action at Elbit Systems in Filton specifically. “I think I was brought in to help out with the action [in] mid-July,” she said. “There was conversation about a new factory calling itself an R&D [research and development] site. I started researching it myself. There were concerns raised by coordinators in Palestine Action about a shipment due to go out immediately to the Israeli military, which is why it was speed-tracked… We did find the drones, so you know…”

Shown Signal messages that were exchanged on 12th July 2024, Zuhrah was asked if the Filton site was being discussed at that time. “I can’t remember,” she said. “I think I had Googled it.”

Before a short break in proceedings, Zuhrah was asked about her university studies. “With exams and assignments, I had to get extensions. To be honest, the genocide was affecting me badly. I was crying all the time. I got extensions, so I was doing exams over the summer and I had to take some of them when I’d started second year. I wasn’t very pro-active. I didn’t read much of what I was given to read and told to read.”

After the break, more Signal messages were read aloud to the court. On 23rd July 2024, there is more focus on planning the action: “Expect meeting by Monday, need to recce site, come up with plan.” The action was, by this time, due to take place sometime in August 2024. “As soon as the Filton site was identified, it was decided that there should be an action as soon as possible before the weapons went to Gaza.”

Records of Google searches related to the Filton site were found on Zuhrah’s devices. She confirmed, “Yes … I was Googling the site to learn more about it”, and acknowledged that she travelled to the Filton site herself to do a recce, arriving in Bristol via coach. On the morning of the recce, she messaged a female friend known only as ‘noor’, telling her that she was going to Bristol for “delinquent activities” and sending “an emoji with a wink”. Green asked her how old she was at the time. Zuhrah replied: “19 – I was just making a joke to her.” She explained that, by “delinquent activities,” she meant “like how old people think young people are up to no good all the time.”

Once in Bristol, Zuhrah confirmed that she then met up with another activist, and they travelled to the Filton site together. The jury are shown pictures of a Volkswagen Passat, which was used to travel to the site.

“You saw the factory itself – can I presume it was your first time seeing the site? Did anything strike you about the site itself?” Zuhrah explained that they “went round to the train tracks … through the jungle”, referring to “thick foliage, thorns and stuff like that”, as well as barbed wire, surrounding the site. “I could see through the fences, it was huge, it was massive – my thought process was [that] we should definitely come to the back [of the site], and it was such a big site, it’ll take so long for security to get out, [meaning that] the action would be over.”

Zuhrah continued by explaining that the purpose of the recce was “to find the quickest, safest way” in and out of the site. “I thought it was a good idea to come from the back because the ‘coverts’ [could] do their part and [leave].”

Zuhrah was then asked about a CryptPad document, which she had logged in to view. “It appears to be a broad idea of what the plan is going be … About halfway [down] the typed page, there is reference to ropes, fishnets, whips.” Zuhrah says she was not involved in writing the document, nor would she claim to have read all of it. “I was overwhelmed. My head was clear [on my role] – get in, do the action, and leave.”

Zuhrah confirmed that someone else had suggested using whips “from their industry”. “Was it the sex industry?” Zuhrah said “yes”.

The final question from Green was about a trip to Manchester that Zuhrah made on 29th July 2024. She confirmed the trip, and then court was adjourned until Thursday.

Garry Green KC began by asking Zuhrah a bit more about her family background and then he picked up where the previous day’s questioning had left off, and asked her about her trip to Manchester. She described how she’d travelled to the city for a meeting in a park with other Palestine Action coordinators. “It wasn’t very formal … We were chatting a lot. I was laughing with people a lot, then I pressured them to get me some ice cream, which is why we were in the park, because we passed an ice cream truck and I wanted some of that.”

“The main plan was discussed,” Zuhrah said, referring to the action at the Filton factory. “Contingencies were discussed”, such as if “the van [used to enter the factory by the red team] didn’t get through, we would need some tools to get the shutters down and get the red team in.” Zuhrah was told “to get the tools we would need for the action – I only got some of them.”

Asked further about the plan, Green suggested that Zuhrah’s role was two-fold. Firstly, “you understood your role [was] to create a distraction, [a] thick smokescreen.” Zuhrah agreed. “Yeah, not to be seen.” She later purchased fireworks for additional “noise cover”. It was also her responsibility “to help the red team get into the factory”, if necessary.

Zuhrah also shared information gathered during her recce of the site. Concerns were raised again about the likelihood of imminent shipments from Filton to Israel. “At the meeting, we saw a video of the workers from the factory saying, ‘We feel like we are the civil soldiers of the Israeli military.” Returning to London the same day, Zuhrah said she later shared the video with other people. She also understood that security may have guard dogs, and it was suggested that the whips mentioned on the previous day could be used to “keep them at bay” – specifically, “the cracking of the whips” would produce a sound that would deter the dogs, “because dogs respond to a frequency [of sound] that people don’t.”

Turning to 30th July 2024, Green asked Zuhrah about how the plan was developing as the planned date drew ever closer. The jury were told about Signal messages in which Zuhrah discussed various risks involved in the action. “We believe in what we are doing and that we are saving lives, and one year into this insane massacre after massacre, there’s not much left to do. We still understand the state will try and protect property over people’s lives, over children’s lives – so there are risks…”

On 2nd August 2024, Zuhrah messaged her co-defendant, Kamran Ahmed: “I heard you might be interested in [an] upcoming action.”, and she also passed some tools on to someone she met at Waterloo. Other messages were sent to other defendants, related to the procurement of their own equipment.

Green then asked Zuhrah about more messages to her friend ‘noor’, who is not affiliated with Palestine Action. She sent a picture to ‘noor’ of some of the tools she had acquired. “Obviously everything is meant to be ‘need to know’, but she’s my friend and I was living with her at the time. I was keeping her up to date with everything.” The picture shows fireworks in “colourful wrappers”, a hammer, and three or four axes. “The axes and hammers were a contingency tool”, she said, in case the van used during the action was unable to get through the factory’s shutters. “OMG, that’s terrifying”, noor says to Zuhrah. “Only because I took off the wrappers.”

Zuhrah later messaged Kamran Ahmed about a “pre-arrest form”. Although the ‘covert’ team hoped to avoid arrest, “there’s always an understanding or an acceptance [that] you could still be arrested … so all actionist are asked to sign a pre-action arrest form with details of who to contact if they are arrested.” Other messages reveal that some intended participants were pulling out of the action. Zuhrah messages one individual: “promise you the likelihood of getting caught is low, we have a really strong plan.” Zuhrah says she was trying to offer reassurance. “It’s very quick, very simple, in my mind. That’s what I believed – that it would go swimmingly.”

The defendants in this trial are all charged with violent disorder. Green asked Zuhrah about the group’s plan in the event of any confrontation with security. “We planned to completely avoid security and leave when the red team were in the factory,” she said. They did not intend to be violent towards anyone.

The ‘covert’ team also did not intend to be arrested. “It’s not the sort of thing that most people [who were] part of Palestine action” wanted to be “caught up in.” They were “students [and] nurses”, Zuhrah said. “No one wants to get caught up standing in a dock having to defend what we did. We just want to say that genocide is bad.”

Green highlights another message where Zuhrah refers to doing a “weapon count”, noting that the terms “weapon” and “tool” are occasionally used interchangeably. “When you’re planning to take action for days and weeks against a weapons factory, you just see the language seeping in. I go back to calling it ‘tools’, ‘equipment’, or ‘items’.” Zuhrah insisted that this had “nothing to do with insidious intention … it is only a weapon in the way that they are used to destroy the actual weapons in the factory” – not because they are intended for use against people.

Green shows an image of Zuhrah in Paddington Station, shortly before another trip to Bristol. She travelled with two other people. On arrival, they to go an AirB&B in the city. “I got to the AirB&B, [and] the red team members were already there. I introduced myself. Members of the black team were arriving in staggered phases. Nothing significant happened.”

Various planning documents were discussed next, which Zuhrah reiterated were not written by her, nor did she remember reading them, because this “felt like a box-ticking exercise”, like reading a generic set of terms and conditions. This was not to suggest that the reading material was “unimportant”, but Zuhrah had other concerns. “I know what brings people to Palestine Action – it’s all one purpose.”

On 5th August 2024, Zuhrah said that she was at the Bristol AirB&B. “I went to go and help cut through the foliage at the back of the factory … I went to help create a clear path and to cut the fence and some of the barbed wire” for the coverts.

Zuhrah later explained that she suggested the red team should have a “buddy scheme” – teaming up in twos to look out for each other. “It’s to make sure people are accounted for, to minimise the risk on any actions.”

Leaving the AirB&B later, Zuhrah and others travelled to a campsite. There, they got into the back of the repurposed prison van used to gain entrance to the factory.

After a court lunch break, Green asked Zuhrah whether she was in the back of the prison van as it was driven through the fence surrounding the Filton site. She confirmed that she was. “The plan was that the black team would leave the van … to make the van lighter.” Zuhrah explained that she remembers the moment well. “Things happened very quickly. It’s very daunting to do something like this.”

After the van made it further into the site, the black team followed behind it on foot. Zuhrah explained they ran in front of the van to get the shutter and weaken it with an angle grinder, because “we had no idea if the van would go through smoothly.”

Others started lighting fireworks and flares to cover the two teams, the noise of the angle grinder, and the sight and sound of the van. “The plan was to make a barrier of smoke … then the van went through the shutters and the shutters went down.” The black team then began moving back to the site’s perimeter fence. “The van is in, the job is done.”

“Did something then happen to cause you and others to change from that plan?” asked Green. Zuhrah explained that they realised someone was missing. They had not, at that point, seen any security guards. “Something was like, ‘I haven’t got my buddy’, then someone shouted that they had the whip or they had got someone down – it was very stressful.” She said she heard a shout that someone was ‘on the floor’. “I’m looking through the smoke … We just saw two legs … disappearing behind the factory, as if it was a lifeless body being dragged. At that point, we were watching video after video from the genocide – it was very triggering. It was reminiscent of bodies in Gaza who were mutilated or ripped apart or thrown off rooftops.”

“They were dragging him by his throat backwards. His balaclava had been taken off his head.” The group then moved in that direction and saw two security guards. “I start running,” Zuhrah said, “to save him.” In her hands, she held a kebab skewer, which was “meant to puncture the vans tyres if it couldn’t get in.”

Zuhrah said everything happened very quickly. She asked one of the others to help her light her fireworks. “I had no idea what to do … This wasn’t going to plan.” The fireworks were intended to cause a distraction, Zuhrah said. Lighting each of them in turn, “I held it out in front of me”. They “went in a few directions.”

Their colleague was eventually released, but Zuhrah said she wasn’t aware of this. She encountered one of the security guards, Angelo Volante, who “had the axe in one hand and the whip in another. He was swinging his axe and shouting at people.”

Playing a clip to the jury, Green points out some shouts of “Fall back, fall back” can be heard, and asks Zuhrah if she remembers that. She says “It came like a relief.” The black team pushed back further to the perimeter fence, which they began to climb back over, one by one. “I was like, ‘This is my team,’ so I was sending everyone else over first, not considering the fact I was the shortest there, and then when the last tall person had left, I realised I couldn’t climb it. It was raining – it was slippery.”

A security guard began to approach Zuhrah from behind. He “had the whip”, she said. “I knew it didn’t hurt because it was a toy. I threw my shoes over [the fence] and he’s whipping me. I told the guys, ‘He’s got me, he’s got me.’” Zuhrah explained that, in all of the confusion, she thought the security guard was grabbing at her, when she was in fact being whipped. “I had no energy and then suddenly I saw a pole and … I started climbing the pole instead of the fence.” On the other side, after landing on someone, she left the scene, leaving her shoes behind.

Gary Green KC quickly summarised key points from the day before, including the black team person being dragged away by security guards, and Zuhrah being whipped against the perimeter fence. He asked Zurrah about the security guard at the fence. She said that he was shouting and “being very aggressive,” Zuhrah said. “He was swearing … making jokes about seeing us again.” Green asked Zuhrah whether she felt the security guard was acting within his role, and she replied that he had gone beyond that the moment that he was dragging someone by their throat, asking “in what world is that ‘reasonable force’?” She said she was afraid that he would use the axe and whip to physically attack them.

Looking over body-camera footage of the encounter, Zuhrah recalled how “I heard people shouting for him to drop [the tools] – ‘it’s not worth your job’…” She explained that, as soon as she saw someone being dragged away by their throat, she lost control of what to do and what to think. She said, “This wasn’t part of the plan.”

She described how people were shouting “drop the tools” at the guard, but he took a swing at their colleague, who then swung back in self-defence. She added: “I remember, in my head, what I was feeling was, ‘what on earth is going on now’ … We were meant to leave. I had assignments to do when I got home… I took a step back, out of shock and confusion.” She said everyone was just physically and emotionally exhausted – “By that point, everyone was just done”. She described that then another security guard, Andrew Shaw, arrived and launched himself at their colleague and had him on the floor again… At that point people started shouting ‘Fall back’ and she started walking backwards slowly and kept shouting, ‘Fall back, fall back, come back’.”

As the group moved away, they were pursued by one of the guards. Zuhrah suggested that if the guard “had ever intended to use reasonable force to detain anyone, this was his chance, but instead he just want to whip [people].” She also pointed out that the security guards had found the hole cut in the perimeter fence, and had “patched it up”, so “they knew Palestine Action were coming”.

Green played more CCTV footage, and asked Zuhrah whether she had handled any of the tools and swung them at anybody. She said no – she did not even use any threatening language towards the guards. “I didn’t want to be near them.” She said that none of the actionists knew “what to do [when] facing this level of violence”, reiterating that “this was never part of the plan with Palestine Action.”

She added that “we came in knowing these are ex-military guards – it’s why we planned to avoid them.” She once again recalled reports of violent security at previous actions. “I’ve seen what these people are capable of.”

Having climbed back over the perimeter fence, Green suggested that the group then left the site in a vehicle. Zuhrah concurred. “We got into a van and drove off … I ended up at Bath Spa train station.” She explained that she was meant to catch a coach, “but it was going to take hours … I was exhausted.”

Green then turned to messages exchanged over Signal that morning. There are reports of a head injury sustained by one of the ‘coverts’. The team had also viewed some of the GoPro footage recorded by the red team, showing what they believed were quadcopter drones found inside the factory itself. “Alhamdulillah”, Zuhrah messaged her friend ‘noor’, meaning ‘thank God’. “We were relieved that they had found and destroyed the Israeli quadcopters and drones … This was the only reason we were there.”

Another message announces the disbanding of the group, now that the action had been completed. “It was unusual,” Zuhrah said. The red team “were going to be remanded into custody,” she said, “so we knew it was high risk.”

Green showed another Signal message that told Zuhrah to ‘go somewhere safe’. Zuhrah said she became aware that there was a “high risk” she would be arrested. “They were picking everyone up. I was told to go to a safehouse. I couldn’t really comprehend it, so I thought about it for a long time, and then I decided to go as I didn’t want to be arrested for trying to stop a genocide.”

After being taken to a safehouse, Zuhrah heard that some of the others had been arrested at gun point. “I was scared. I was stuck in the middle of England somewhere… I contacted my student friends… I got someone to reach out to the student protesters in York. A guy responded. He said he had a sofa bed… I got to York and I found a hospital and found its multi-faith room and slept there for the night.”

Zuhrah stayed in York for the next week. “I went to the beach. I tried to calm down.” Eventually, she made her way back to London, where she was able to debrief with other members of Palestine Action. “Tensions are high,” she said. “I was very stressed and upset.”

Zuhrah wrote down her thoughts in the aftermath of the action, which were presented as part of the evidence bundle. “It wasn’t part of the plan to walk forward into the smokescreen, and then everything that happened with security afterwards.” Zuhrah said she was upset with some of the members of her team, indicating they had “gone rogue.”

During the debrief, Zuhrah said she “wanted to start positive. I knew it would be heavy, so I wanted to go round everyone and give them a chance to vent.” Many of the actionists were upset about the confrontation with security, she added. “We aren’t going to a factory to fight security – we are going there to destroy weapons.” They all wanted to understand what had gone wrong.

“Before actions, you’re meant to talk about red lines. Of course, violence is a red line, so I’d kind of taken it for granted… We all know the parameters. We all know why we joined Palestine Action. It was a reminder [that] we have to set out parameters beforehand.”

Defence barrister Green suggested that in that respect, there were lessons to be learnt from the Filton action. Zuhrah agreed. “I guess it just wasn’t even a thought [that] they would want to attack [us] in this way… I thought we would be out quickly and we’d be done. No one knew what to do… The lesson is – ‘don’t jump in, even if something is escalating.’”

Further notebooks were introduced as evidence. “I’m writing down everything,” Zuhrah said, “the views or observations of other people… many people… people expressing thoughts about what happened at Filton. It was based on their anxiety.”

Green then moved onto the day that Zuhrah was arrested. “Counter-terror police rocked up at 5am [and] took me,” she said, “and didn’t return me for another 15 months.” After raiding the house in London where Zuhrah was staying, she was taken to a police station and given the opportunity to speak to a solicitor. She was interviewed over the course of four days, during which she made no comment. “I was 19. I was scared. The raid was very violent. It was terrifying,” she said. “I had no idea what was going on. I had tried to stop a genocide and [now] I’m in a cell being asked about terrorism and violence and all sorts…” Zuhrah said she was remanded to custody for “15 months and one day.”

Deanna Heer KC the began the prosecution cross-examination of Qesser with a series of yes-or-no questions. “When you went to Elbit at Filton on 6th August [2024], you went intending that the red team would damage or destroy as many of Elbit’s weapons as they could.” Yes. “And that’s what you did?” Yes. “And you say you did that along with the rest of the black team by causing a distraction?” Yes. “And the purpose of that was to stop the security intervening to stop the red team entering the factory?” No. “Was the purpose to create opportunity for the red team to enter?” Yes.

Heer then asked Zuhrah about her expectations with regards to the actions of Elbit’s security. “You said there was a risk in your mind [that] the security would be aggressive?” Yes. “You were told prior to Filton [that] Elbit security guard break people’s ribs.” Yes. “They would throw people off roofs?” Yes. “Pull hair?” Yes. “Set dogs on people?” Yes. It was on the basis of this risk that the black team were there, Zuhrah said. But this risk they had “planned to avoid.”

Heer then recapped Zuhrah’s evidence so far, clarifying details and making sure that her sense of her testimony was clear. After discussing some of the material in the Palestine Action ‘Underground Manual’, Zuhrah reiterated her role. “I was the covert coordinator” she said. After more confirmation of the timeline, and of Zuhrah’s statements so far, the court was adjourned for the weekend.