BRITAIN should never host the “depraved” companies exhibiting weapons used to kill and maim tens of thousands of Palestinian children, peace campaigners said today.

A coalition of peace and anti-militarism organisations protested against the Farnborough International Airshow where over 1,000 companies exhibited their “weapons of genocide and war.”

Billing itself as an opportunity for “leading innovators in aerospace and defence industries to showcase their advancements,” the convention in Hampshire just outside of London will host firms such as BAE Systems, Boeing, RTX Raytheon and Rafael.

Many of the companies taking part in the exhibition are directly involved in the Israeli genocide in Palestine, as well as attacks on Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, campaigners said.

They also pointed to the poor human rights records of participating countries and territories such as Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Protesters held a demonstration outside the event today, supported by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Raised Voices Choir, local members of the Quakers, the Greater Rushmoor Action for Peace and the Blackwater Valley Friends of the Earth.

They also slammed the airshow for its principal “strategic” sponsor Barclays bank due to its regular investments in Israel’s largest arms company Elbit Systems.

CAAT pointed to recent reporting which showed Elbit enabled the Israeli military to “identify” over 850,000 targets since the start of its genocidal assault on Gaza until the end of 2025.

Spokeswoman Kirsten Bayes called the arms fair “a veritable horror show of company exhibitors and countries steeped in the crimes of genocide, man-made famine and authoritarian repression.

“The companies exhibiting include the who’s who of the F-35 ecosystem, a fighter jet whose use in war crimes — from Gaza, Iran, Lebanon and Venezuela — is so systematic that it has been rightly dubbed the ‘genocide jet’,” she said.

“So many of the companies exhibiting, from Elbit to Rafael, are mired in the Israeli military’s deliberate killing and maiming of the tens of thousands of Palestinian children, as a UN Commission of Inquiry recently found.

“The UK should never host such a depraved group of suffering-profiteers. CAAT is proud to support conscientious protesters and demands for a boycott to end our national complicity in the gravest crimes.”

Ms Bayes told the Morning Star: “The Farnborough Airshow has become an important arms fair: deals for weapons worth tens of billions of pounds are expected to be made here this week.

“These for drones, fast jets, missiles: weapons we have seen used in Gaza, in Yemen and lately in Lebanon and Iran.

“It is high time the arms trade and the destruction it causes were brought to an end.”

Show organisers were contacted for comment.