By ZACH LAIRD, InDepthNH.org

NEWINGTON — Sixty four people gathered at Market Square in Portsmouth on Saturday then trekked three miles to Sig Sauer’s headquarters on Pease Boulevard, and held a peaceful demonstration down the road to oppose the company supplying weapons to the Israel Defensive Forces.

Hosted by Resist Arms to Israel Now (RAIN), a coalition of more than a dozen local advocacy organizations, the peaceful protestors marched on foot — while others road bikes — to hear speeches, hold signs at oncoming traffic, and remember the lives lost in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The coalition also opposes a partnership between Sig Sauer and Israel Aerospace Industries, in which Sig Sauer will develop an armed drone that pairs an Israeli aircraft platform with AI and a remote-controlled M250 machine gun.

Sig Sauer did not respond for comment.

“We looked around and saw that, locally in New Hampshire, one of the supports to this genocide includes weapons manufacturers like Sig Sauer, who are instrumental in giving Israel what it needs to commit the violence that it’s doing,” said Amy Antonucci, chair of the Board of New Hampshire Peace Action Education Fund.

Before the group splintered on the journey to Newington, a Palestinian man from Dover named Mohammad Dana said he had a message for the employees of Sig Sauer: “You can strike; you can stop production, (and) you can stop the bombs from being produced.”

Dana told InDepthNH.org that he was overwhelmed with the presence of people coming out to oppose Sig Sauer aiding Israel.

“The message that these people are sending is that we are not condoning what the government is doing — what the businesses in the US are doing to support this genocide — and we are going to stand up against it (and) we will speak up, and that is powerful. It’s just the start, but I’m expecting that this will pick up momentum,” Dana said.

According to an article by Janes.com — which is an open-source intelligence company that specializes in military and national security topics — the product Sig Sauer is now developing for Israel is an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) called the Fire Storm 250. It can stay airborne for up to three hours, and is armed with a stabilized weapon station and precision targeting system.

Once the group got settled down the road from Sig Sauer’s headquarters they also held signs at oncoming cars and honored the lives of children lost in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and did so by reciting 100 names and placing them in a makeshift coffin.

Yussra Ebrahim, a woman originally from Iraq who now lives in Portsmouth, said she had no idea that she was so close to a company that’s getting weapons to Israel. She added that it’s “horrifying, and we can’t just casually be neighbors with this kind of evil.”

Heath Howard, who dropped out of the race for the Congressional District 1 as a Democrat in August, also attended and said: “This is a great turnout, and it’s an important thing that people realize how they are affecting what’s happening around the world right here locally; and that’s why I’m here today.”

“It’s extremely disappointing (Sig Sauer supplying arms to Israel), and it’s a situation where we need to make sure that we prevent any further arm sales to Israel, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s Sig Sauer or another company; the United States should not be aiding Israel,” Howard added.

Attendee Donna Pare said she doesn’t think America should be funding companies that make weapons to send to Israel, and said the Israel-Palestine conflict is terrible and needs to be stopped.

Another attendee, Gail Gouveia, said the fact that “just about every state has a war industry contributes to people looking the other way because they figure it’s a matter of employment. But we just need to start coming down on the destruction of human life, no matter where it’s happening.”

Bob Sanders, a member of the leading committee for RAIN, said it was a great turnout but that more people should be concerned about what’s going on.

“It’s happening right in their backyard; manufacturing weapons that are killing innocent civilians in Gaza. We really need to put Sig Sauer on notice that it’s unacceptable to be aiding a genocide,” Sanders said.