A message from Gaza's children

The following message was read at the James Cropper plc shareholder meeting on 3rd September 2025:

To the Owners and Executives of James Cropper
I am here today to give voice to those who have been silenced. I am here to speak for the
children of Gaza.

You have never heard their names. You will never see their faces. But your work, in this quiet office near Lancaster, has decided their fate.

The part you make for the F-35 jet… do you know what that sound means to a child in Gaza? It is not the sound of freedom or security. It is the last sound they will ever hear.

It is the sound that comes before the ceiling collapses onto their bed.
It is the sound that comes before they lose their mother, their father, their brothers and sisters.
It is the sound that comes before they are buried, unnamed, under the rubble of their own
school.

When you sign that contract, you are not just moving paperwork. You are signing a permission slip for their nightmares. You are approving a purchase order for their terror.

You may tell yourself it is just a small part. But there is no such thing as a small part in a machine of death. A bomb cannot fall without it. A child cannot be orphaned without it. A hospital cannot be destroyed without it.

My question to you is not about business or law. It is simpler, and much harder:

What is the “small part” worth to you?

Is it worth the life of a five-year-old boy who loved football and wanted to be a doctor?
Is it worth the dreams of a ten-year-old girl who kept a diary and loved to draw birds?
Is their future a fair price for your profit?

The children of Gaza did not choose this war. They only chose to live. You are making that choice for them. And you have chosen death.

We are asking you—we are begging you—to make a different choice.

Choose to be the company that makes paper, not war.
Choose to be the company known for creating, not for destroying.
Choose to be the company that heard the voice of a child over the sound of money.

Stop making this part. Stop supplying this war. Stop selling the future of Palestine for a contract.
Let the children live. Thank you.

(From a resident of Gaza, who wishes to remain anonymous to protect his family’s safety, 01.09.25)