Pro-Palestine activists smashed the glass doors of a tech company’s Cambridge offices early yesterday morning (17/10), accusing the multinational of complicity in “genocide”.

Siemens, whose Kett House office was targeted, is a German technology conglomerate and leader in Europe’s industrial manufacturing industry.

The activists claim that they targeted Siemens because of its “support [of] one of the most horrific genocides the world has ever seen”.

The protesters claim that Siemens provides “technological infrastructure” to Israel, saying that they targeted the company “because they are on the official BDS list”.

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement calls for a total boycott of Israel, and lists companies which it claims are complicit in Israel’s “apartheid regime”.

The BDS website’s criticisms of Siemens focus on the Great Sea Interconnector, formerly known as the EuroAsia Interconnector, a submarine power cable which would link the Greek, Cypriot, and Israeli power grids. Siemens has been selected as the preferred contractor for the construction of the project’s converter stations.

BDS claims that the interconnector would “contribute to the maintenance and expansion of Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise” by transmitting energy through the occupied West Bank, citing a report by the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council.

The development would allow “illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land to benefit from Israel-EU trade of electricity produced from fossil gas,” BDS claims.

One activist behind the action said: “Over the past couple of days we have seen some of the most horrific videos of the last year of the attacks on the Gaza Strip and 76 years of occupation in Palestine, with people being burnt alive in a hospital, including a teenager called Shaban al-Dalou.”

“As Israel escalates its ethnic cleansing of the region, expanding from Palestine to Lebanon, we must also escalate in our resistance to it. […] We will see a free Palestine in our lifetimes,” they said.

The Prime Minister recently marked his “sorrow and grief” at the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attacks, when around 1,200 Israeli people were killed by Hamas, and 250 hostages taken.

The Israeli invasion of Gaza which followed October 7 has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Lebanon has become involved in the conflict in the Middle East in recent weeks, after exchanging missile attacks with Israel. In recent days, UN peacekeepers have accused Israel of “deliberate” attacks on their base in southern Lebanon.

Cambridge has seen a number of pro-Palestine protests following October 7, including the defacing of a painting of Lord Balfour in Trinity College, the former Prime Minister whose Balfour Declaration supported the establishment of a “home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.

Last week, hundreds of Cambridge students walked out of their lectures as part of a national strike for Palestine. A speaker from Cambridge for Palestine (C4P), whose encampment on King’s Parade was dismantled in July, claimed: “the University has shown no intention to do better for its students, including Palestinian ones, of their own accord. It is only through the unrelenting pressure that we’ve put on them.”

A spokesperson for Siemens told Varsity: “We are deeply concerned about the humanitarian devastation for civilians in the region and we support any action to avoid further escalation. In the strongest possible terms, we fundamentally reject any violence against innocent people and civilians.”

“Our deepest sympathy goes out to all those who have suffered casualties and injuries. We’re monitoring the situation in the region very closely and provide support to our people and their families,” they continued.