Dozens of protestors rallied and marched at Tech Port San Antonio on Saturday to protest U.S. defense contractors that have a history of supplying the Israeli military with weapons and surveillance tools.
Protestors singled out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Leidos as “war profiteers” who have helped to enable the Israeli military’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip. That operation has killed more than 19,000 people. It followed the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel that killed more than 1,100 people.
The five companies are some of the largest defense contractors in the country. They focus on cyber operations or aircraft repair at their Port San Antonio locations, not physical weaponry manufacturing.
But in an online flier for the event, the Party for Socialism and Liberation said the companies represent a military industrial complex that enables war around the world, including in Gaza.
A statement from Port San Antonio’s Chief Communications Officer Paco Felici said it was his understanding that the protest “took place without incident,” and he had no further comment.
Faiza Nguyen and her family attended the protest and held a bake sale as protestors chanted and talked about the war in Gaza.
“We’ve been doing the bake sale for over two weeks now,” Nguyen said. “As soon as we heard about what’s going on in Gaza, we were just devastated to hear what was going on. And we mobilized, and this is how we can come together as a family.”
Nguyen said she and her family have raised $1,000 in two weeks by selling cookies at different protests around San Antonio and Austin. She said they’re sending the money to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, an NGO that has supported children in the Palestinian territories since 1991.
“Whether it be food or water or shelter, the activities that the PCRF is doing for the children who have been displaced, we see the good work that they’re doing, and we want to support them,” she said.
One of her young children sat in a chair near their table holding a sign asking for money to support the children of Gaza.
More than 7,000 children are believed to have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Human Rights Watch released a report on Dec. 18 explaining that Israel has used the starvation of civilians as a “method of warfare in the Gaza Strip,” a war crime under international law.
Israel responded to the report by calling HRW “antisemitic and anti-Israel” and denied the accusation.
San Antonio residents continue to show up every week to demand a ceasefire in Gaza at protests across San Antonio organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation, San Antonio for Justice in Palestine, and Jewish Voice for Peace.
