Morocco: Protests over aircraft shipment to Israel

Tensions have risen in Tangiers, Morocco as civilians have taken to the streets in order to protests against the docking of a ship carrying parts of F-35 fighter aircraft to Israel.

As reported by The New Arab on April 21st, the Maersk Liner ship was expected to dock in the early hours of the morning in the Tangier Med Complex about an hour away from the city.

Once docked in Tangiers, the ship would then move on for shipment at Haifa.

The authorities at the Tangier Med port have stated they are “not aware of the contents of containers transiting through global shipping routes or stopping temporarily at our facilities.”

Speaking at the protests, the Moroccan Front for Palestine said that it was their country’s “responsibility not to become a gateway for facilitating genocide”.

A simultaneous protest was taking place across the Strait of Gibraltar at the entrance to the port of Algeciras.

Despite the outage, the port of Tangiers has in fact hosted Israeli naval ships previously, on June 22nd 2024 a landing ship was assisted by Moroccan engineers after it arrived from the United States on its way to Israel.

F-35 aircraft have been used by Israel during their attacks on Gaza which has caused anger throughout the civilian population in Morocco despite the fact that the government have not distanced themselves from Israel.

Sion Assign, an activist and founder of Morocco’s BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) group said that: “We sent a letter to the Moroccan government detailing the ship’s contents and how dangerous this transfer is, but they refuse to take us seriously”.

On February 10th, Israel beat France to become Morocco’s main defence partner, signing a deal that included the purchase of self propelled artillery systems, marked by Israeli company Elbit Systems as ‘battle tested’.

The deal saw Israel become Morocco’s their largest weapons supplier, accounting for around 11% of imports.

The New Arab, Maghrebi