UK close to giving Israel's Elbit £2bn contract to train British soldiers

The UK is reportedly poised to sign a £2bn ($2.69bn) contract with Israel's largest arms manufacturer that would see it train 60,000 British soldiers a year. 

Elbit Systems provides around 85 percent of Israel’s drones and land-based military equipment, and has played a major role in supplying Israel with weaponry for its genocide in Gaza.

Private Eye reported this week that the company's British arm, Elbit Systems UK, is close to winning a major contract that would make it a "strategic partner" of Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Elbit is reportedly bidding against Raytheon for the Army Collective Training Service contract, after the MoD reduced the bidders to two in February.

If Elbit wins the contract it will work with the MoD to transform military training "through digitalisation, simulation, a different relationship with industry, and by changing how and where the military trains". 

This comes after it emerged earlier this month that Elbit signed a $1.63bn arms deal with Serbia to supply it with long-range precision rockets, alongside a range of other military technologies.

Last month a report by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for Palestine, said that “for Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems… the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture”.

Since 2023, Elbit's UK arm has run the MoD's Project Vulcan, a £57m contract of simulation-based training for tank crews. The new deal, if it goes through, would be a significant step up in the relationship. 

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Last September, the government suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licences to Israel after a review found there was a clear risk that British-made weapons could be used in violation of international humanitarian law.

Licences for parts for F-35 fighter jets, which are directly used in Gaza, were among those exempted from the embargo.

Private Eye said it asked the MoD if it would be appropriate to "give a company so involved in the Gaza war such a major contract", but that the MoD did not respond.

Elbit subsidiaries in Britain have often had their headquarters targeted by direct action group Palestine Action, which the government last month banned as a terrorist organisation. 

Palestine Action said on 1 July that protesters had “successfully halted operations at Guardtech”, a subcontractor which it said “provides essential clean room services” to Instro Precision, an Elbit subsidiary.

Elsewhere in Bristol last month, activists targeted another Elbit subsidiary, Aztec West, using a van and lock-on devices to block the site's only entrance and dousing it in red paint to symbolise Palestinian blood.