The supply chain for genocidal weapons includes logistics firms. Multiple ‘Australian’ companies, including Toll Holdings, have been identified transporting weapons for export to the US where they are used to support ‘Israel’s murderous campaign against Palestine. Building off Palestine Action’s successful campaigns against Kuehne+Nagel and Front Runner Logistics, which culminated in those firms dropping contracts with Elbit Systems, we declare a goal of forcing Toll to cease abetting genocide and renounce all contracts with Thales, NIOA and any other weapons manufacturers.
A range of weapons and components are produced in ‘Australia’, including at government-owned sites at Benalla (‘Victoria’) and Mulwala (‘New South Wales’). Operated by Thales, the world’s 16th largest arms dealer, and by NIOA, a weapons company which also supplies the ‘Australian’ police, the Benalla factory manufactures ‘a variety of ordnance, including artillery shells and large bombs’. At Mulwala ‘the volatile materials that fill artillery, bombs and rifle rounds are made’. A union representative for workers at these sites has said: ‘The workers at these sites make bullets, bombs and shells… They don’t build anything’. Production at these factories comprises a ‘second supply line’ for the US military, used to ‘replenish U.S. stockpiles or be sold to American partners’ of which ‘Israel’ is at the forefront. Netanyahu has stated that what ‘Israel’ needs from the US is ‘munitions, munitions, munitions’. This is salient in context of the IOF practice of indiscriminate shelling and saturation bombing, a strategy befitting of their legendary cowardice and disregard for life.
Toll provides equipment to physically transport genocidal weapons. They also support the arms trade by enabling Thales and other weapons manufacturers to invest and operate at low financial risk. Their trucks have been observed and photographed entering Point Wilson pier, a dedicated Victorian facility for military imports and exports including ‘explosive ordnance’, to meet ships en route to Sunny Point, the primary terminal for shipment of weapons and ammunition for the US military. Thales calls Toll a ‘key transport partner’. Toll describes Thales as ‘a very important part of our business’, assigning staff with titles like Senior Manager Explosive Services to oversee the partnership. NIOA has also ‘partnered with Toll Logistics-Mining/Toll Global Forwarding’ to deliver 155mm shells. These relationships underpin the weapons dealers’ access to insurance, credit and financial services – a commercial position underwritten, not only by any trucks and equipment used to transport arms, but by all assets owned by Toll, whose ongoing viability as a company is needed to secure the stability of services provided.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued an advisory ruling declaring ‘Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories to be illegal, and has ordered states to ‘take urgent steps to prevent ongoing international crimes, including by imposing a comprehensive arms embargo against Israel’. This is not to say the bounds of pro-Palestinian solidarity or Palestinian resistance should be delimited by international law, which has comprehensively failed Palestinians. These rulings are cited, not as an arbiter of morality, but a lever to be leveraged via broader social movements and freedom struggles.
Toll Holdings is owned by Japan Post, which itself is part-owned by the Japanese government. Toll boasts in weapons trade publications that the ‘As a division of Japan Post, the Toll Group brings substantial and secure financial backing… ensuring Toll is a low-risk, trusted and reliable partner’. While many Japanese call for stability and peace, they are forced to underwrite military escalation in Palestine, Iran and across the Middle East through investment in Toll. In February 2024, the Japanese conglomerate Itochu ended its ‘strategic co-operation’ with Elbit Systems, in line with the ICJ ruling and against a backdrop of domestic protests, a threatened Malaysian boycott of the Itochu-owned chain Family Mart, and Palestine Action’s ongoing direct action campaign against Elbit.
In so-called ‘Australia’, increasing investment in arms manufacturing occurs in the context of AUKUS, the trilateral militaristic alliance with the UK and the US. AUKUS signifies ‘Australia’s deepening embeddedness into the US military-industrial complex and as a servant or junior partner under US-hegemony. Major state expenditure on arms and armament production, including $220 million at the Benalla and Mulwala sites announced in 2023, coincides with the hollowing out of domestic social services and quality of life.
The Benalla and Mulwala factories produce unguided 155-millimeter artillery shells, non-precision weapons that are not even purported to minimise deaths among non-combatants. A senior Israeli official has been quoted describing the 155mm shells as being in ‘increasingly short supply’ and suggesting that ‘Israel’ ‘might lose the war’ because it is running out of ammunition. Delaying, disrupting or cutting off the supply of these munitions may be immediately material and life-saving for Palestinians.
Much of ‘Australian’ arms production is concentrated in remote, centralised and/or government-owned facilities, including those at Benalla and Mulwala. At military sites, security is high and the consequences of action may be severe. Toll Holdings is a privately-owned company whose assets are dispersed and move through ordinary communities. People have a right to resist the flow of weapons, or assets that support this genocidal trade, through their homes.
All Toll Holdings assets in so-called ‘Australia’ are on Aboriginal land, where no consent for settler-colonisers to underwrite genocide has been given. NIOA Munitions, which has partnered with Toll, is also a major supplier for Australian police, producing 70 percent of their ammunition as at 2017. Munitions used to repress, terrorise and dispossess Aboriginal communities are manufactured by NIOA, likely including the bullets that murdered Kumanjayi Walker.
Toll Holdings is a platinum sponsor of Land Forces, the largest arms trade exhibition in the Southern hemisphere. In ‘Brisbane’, Toll partner with Leonardo to provide helicopters for the ‘Australian military’. Toll Fuels trucks have been photographed supplying ‘Australian’ navy ships, reflecting the deep intertwinement of this company with ‘Australian’ militarism and imperialism.
All Toll Holdings-owned sites and equipment are legitimate targets for anti-genocide action. This may include sabotage, vandalism, blockades, strikes, occupations and all forms of material resistance and disruption. Everything is on the table.
*’Australia’ and ‘Israel’ are in quote marks to denote the illegitimacy of these occupying colonial entities.