– EMSA drone contract with Elbit ended after 10,000 sign petition ‘Stop Israeli Killer Drones’
– Frontex contracts IAI and Elbit for drone services
Brussels/Ramallah, 9 November 2020 – Portuguese company CeiiA recently decided not to renew the lease of two drones from Israeli arms company Elbit for border patrol and other missions for the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA). This decision follows the signing of the petition ‘Stop Israeli Killer Drones,’ launched by World Without Walls Europe and co-sponsored by 46 organizations, by over 10,000 European citizens demanding the end of the contract and the use of drones. Unfortunately, this does not mean the end of the use of military drones for EU border security. EU border guard agency Frontex contracted Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Elbit drone services, and Greece also started to lease IAI drones for border patrol.
Frontex and EU member states could request EMSA to use the Hermes drones from Elbit to detect and intercept migrant boats, amongst other missions. At the beginning of this year, one of these drones crashed in Crete while monitoring the maritime borders of Greece. Elbit Systems develops its drones together with the Israeli military and promotes its technology as field-tested – on Palestinians. It provides 85% of the drones used by Israel in its repeated military assaults and continued inhumane siege on Gaza.
Earlier this year, Greece announced it would lease Heron drones from IAI, notorious for the same reasons as the Hermes drones, to expand its border security capacity. Last month, Frontex announced it awarded a €50 million contract to Airbus (with IAI as a subcontractor) and Elbit for providing drone surveillance flights in the Mediterranean in the next two years. With these contracts, Frontex takes new steps in its border security work, expanding its role in EU migration and border policies, and acquiring its own equipment instead of relying on that of EU member states. For refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean, this can have more devastating consequences, especially in light of recent publications about Frontex’s complicity in illegal pushbacks from Greece to Turkey and pullbacks to Libya. It is also a point of concern that it remains unclear what the contracted companies can do with the raw data collected by the drone missions apart from making it available to Frontex.
“The end of the use of Elbit drones by EMSA shows that public pressure has an impact to stop unethical practices and shed light on the atrocious sales strategies of Israeli arms companies,” said Aneta Jerska (ECCP) from World Without Walls Europe. “The new Frontex contract and the increasing use of drones, many of them from Israeli companies, for targeting refugees at Europe’s borders mean that we need to build much more pressure to stop Europe’s deadly anti-migration politics and the EU’s financing of Israel’s military industry.”
On Tuesday, November 10 (3pm CET), World Without Walls Europe will organize the webinar ‘The EU-Israel Nexus: Militarisation, Migration and Apartheid.’ Speakers from Who Profits, Stop Wapenhandel, Legal Center Lesvos, Sea Watch, and Migreurop will discuss EU border militarisation, the role of Israeli military companies, and ways to take action against this.
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The petition and the list of co-sponsoring organizations: https://petition.stopthewall.org/
The webinar ‘The EU-Israel Nexus: Militarisation, Migration and Apartheid’: https://www.facebook.com/events/385978775871519/
Also see the briefing ‘Stop Israeli Killer Drones From Intensifying the EU’s Border Militarization’: http://www.eccpalestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/StopIsraeliKillerDrones.pdf
For more details about the new Frontex contract: https://stopwapenhandel.org/node/2432