By Kathy Durkin
February 19, 2026

Workers spontaneously stopped production and walked out of the FN Herstal factory on Feb. 13 in protest of the visit by Col. Moshe Tetro, a high-ranking officer in the Israel Occupation Force and military attaché to Belgium. He was there as part of a tour led by the Belgian Defense Ministry of the plant in Herstal, Belgium, which is considered the largest arms manufacturer in the country.

The strikers kept the factory gates closed all day until they were re-opened at night. Many of them demonstrated outside of the plant’s gates. The action was initiated by members of the General Federation of Belgian Labor (FGTB), a leftist union, to oppose the company’s weapons sales to Israel and to denounce Tetro’s role in Israel’s crimes in Gaza.

Dyab Abou Jahjah, director of the Brussels-based Hind Rajab Foundation (named for a five-year-old girl murdered by Israeli soldiers), wrote on X: “Workers stopped the machines and walked out upon learning that an Israeli military officer had been received at the factory.” Jahjah said that this walkout was a “clear message” against the weapons makers’ collusion in Israel’s war in Gaza. (Middle East Monitor, Feb. 14)

He affirmed that Tetro “was implicated in attacks on hospitals and in managing the policy of hunger [starvation] imposed on Gaza.” Jahjah’s foundation has called for the Belgian government to expel Tetro and has submitted a complaint against him to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, calling for the court to issue an arrest warrant for him for the crimes of “genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.” (hindrajabfoundation.org, June 26,2025)

The one-day strike by FN Herstal workers is part of the international movement against U.S. / Israeli genocide in Gaza — and a sign of the increasing mobilization of the global working class in solidarity with the Palestinian people.