Belgian arms factory workers strike over IDF attaché's visit to premises

Trade union calls Col. Moshe Tetro’s participation in defense ministry tour ‘unacceptable’ as workers halt production; Hind Rajab Foundation chief lauds day-long strike

Factory workers for Belgium’s largest weapons manufacturer went on strike Thursday after a high-ranking Israel Defense Forces officer took part in a tour of its facilities, Belgian outlets reported.

The tour of the FN Herstal factory, organized by the Belgian defense ministry, was intended for military attachés stationed in Brussels and thus included Israel’s representative, Col. Moshe Tetro.

Upon hearing that the Israeli officer was visiting the premises, some factory employees declared a spontaneous strike last week, halting the production line. Many demonstrated outside the factory, and its gates remained closed until Friday night as part of the action, Belgian media reported.

The workers were spurred to action by the General Labour Federation of Belgium (FTGB), a socialist union that called Tetro’s visit “unacceptable” in a statement quoted by Israel’s Channel 12 news.

“It is unacceptable that the factory premises are being used as a meeting place for the defense ministry to promote diplomatic-security goals, when among those present is the representative of a country that blatantly violates international law,” the union said, according to the report.

Within hours, factory management issued a statement saying it had not received any delegation from the IDF, and instead hosted a group of military attachés at the explicit request of Belgium’s defense ministry. The factory also noted that it hadn’t sold weapons or any other military equipment to Israel for several decades.

This photograph taken on June 13, 2022, shows the logo from Belgium weapon manufacturer FN Herstal on display at the Eurosatory international land and airland defence and security trade fair, in Villepinte, a northern suburb of Paris. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP)

Dyab Abou Jahjah, chairman of the Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation, a legal group that works to get IDF soldiers arrested for alleged war crimes when they travel abroad, hailed the strike and denounced Tetro as a “war criminal.”

“A clear message was sent: no complicity from a weapons plant while Gaza is being devastated,” Abou Jahjah wrote on X. “If it is confirmed that the officer present was the Israeli military attaché in Belgium, then we are speaking about Moshe Tetro — implicated in attacks on hospitals and in managing the policy of hunger imposed on Gaza.”

He noted that the Hind Rajab Foundation has called on the Belgian government to expel Tetro and even filed complaints against the officer in the International Criminal Court (ICC) over his role in overseeing the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza during the war.

When filing a war crimes complaint in December 2024, the foundation claimed that Tetro, in his former position as head of COGAT’s Coordination and Liaison Administration to Gaza, was responsible for implementing a policy of starvation in the Strip.

“Here we are dealing with a key figure in the implementation of Israeli policy toward hospitals and the strategy of famine and thirst as a weapon of war,” Abou Jahjah claimed at the time.

Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations that a policy of starvation is being implemented in Gaza, claiming it has allowed hundreds of thousands of tons of aid, including food, into the enclave.