Oakland, CA – This Thursday, the Oakland People’s Arms Embargo Coalition—made up of workers, educators, organizers, and community members—are showing up to the Port Commissioner meeting in Oakland to demand that their voices be heard to end Oakland Airport’s complicity in sending military cargo shipments to Israel after two years of genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
“Hundreds of military cargo shipments have left OAK to Israel since January. Oakland officials, including our Port Commissioners, have the authority to heed the call of workers who do not consent to facilitate genocide through our civilian airport,” said Aisha Nizar with the Palestinian Youth Movement. “They have the obligation to ensure that the city of Oakland continues to uphold our legacy of human rights and solidarity, not genocide.”
Oakland has played a critical role in trafficking deadly F-35 jet parts to Nevatim Airbase in Israel, providing Israel with the parts necessary to sustain their bombing campaigns in Gaza, Lebanon, and the surrounding region. Just this week, Israel bombed a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon in another flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement, likely using an F-35 fighter jet. Oakland residents have also lost family members as a result of F-35 jets used by Israel in Gaza,
This port authority meeting comes on the heels of a unanimous vote on behalf of the Alameda Labor Council (ALC) to endorse the Oakland People’s Arms Embargo campaign, becoming the largest labor body to support ending military cargo shipments leaving from the Oakland Airport to Israel. The Council represents around 135,000 Bay Area workers in the healthcare, transportation, education, construction, manufacturing, and service industries.
Over 150 endorsing businesses, unions, and community organizations are calling on the City and Port of Oakland to stop their involvement in this unnecessary and lethal supply chain, and almost 12,000 Bay Area residents have signed a petition in support. The people of Oakland were amongst the first people in the nation to pass a ceasefire resolution for Gaza, and have made their stance clear: Oakland must not be a hub for genocide. The Port Commissioners must now honor their commitment to the people they serve and stop the transfer of military cargo from OAK to Israel.
EXPOSING OAKLAND AIRPORT’S MILITARY CARGO SHIPMENTS TO ISRAEL
This report you can read here highlights evidence of ongoing military cargo shipments to the Israeli military through Oakland International Airport (OAK). Since January 2025, at least 280 military cargo shipments to Israel have been identified departing from OAK, with Nevatim Air- base being the primary final destination.1 These shipments have occurred multiple timesper week for nearly the entirety of the year and have included F-35 fighter jet components used to carry and release munitions, guide weapons, power surveillance and target- ng systems, and support critical flight operations—all essential to sustaining the combat eadiness of Israel’s Air Force
The frequency of these shipments, particularly when compared to other U.S. airports, po- sitions OAK as one of the few consistently active logistical nodes in the U.S. military supply chain to Nevatim Airbase. Based on a sample of 500 shipments to Israel routed through FedEx’s Global Superhub between April and June 2025, OAK was the second most frequent transit point nationwide, after Fort Worth, Texas (excluding the Superhub itself).2 These components were supplied by, or contracted through, Lockheed Martin, and included
program logistics overseen by the U.S. Department of Defense’s F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO), and physical distribution handled through the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Distribution Depot in Tracy, California.3,
Many of the items shipped—such as bomb release units, weapons bay adapters, surveillance sensors, and flight-critical electronics—are the precise mechanisms that enable the F-35 to fly its bombing missions and to identify, target, and strike with lethal accuracy. The capabilties enabled by these components have been used extensively by the Israeli Air Force in bombing campaigns in Gaza, including the airstrike on Al-Mawasi in July 2024, during which Israel dropped three 2,000-pound bombs on a designated humanitarian safe zone—killing at
least 90 people.
Together, given:
- The frequency of shipments is multiple days every week—280 shipments over about six months—with only one week observed limited to a single shipment day, showing that Oakland is a critical and consistently used supply node for Israel’s F-35 fleet;
- The range of components delivered is both broad and essential—spanning from lethal systems like the Electro-Optical DAS and bomb release units to small but necessary parts like bolts, actuators, and seals—including parts without which the F-35
- cannot operate, indicating regular resupply and maintenance servicing;
- Nevatim is the final destination listed for 96% of the 280 shipments, which is the base for Israel’s entire F-35I fleet—the only F-35 Lightning IIs permanently stationed there;
- Shipments are coming in from DLA Distribution San Joaquin—officially designated the “Wholesale Air Vehicle Storage and Distribution location for F-35 Lightning II aircraft parts”,7 while Israel’s F-35Is are F-35 Lightning II variants;
- The F-35 JPO, responsible for overseeing lifecycle management and sustainment of the F-35 aircraft, plays a direct role in coordination;
- F-35s are confirmed to be used by Israel for airstrikes on the people of Gaza, logging over 15,000 operational flight hours since the start of the genocide;8 We are able to conclude, beyond reasonable doubt, that military cargo being shipped out of OAK has been used by the Israeli Air Force to carry out airstrikes and commit genocide in Gaza.
About the Oakland People’s Arms Embargo
The Oakland People’s Arms Embargo is a grassroots campaign and coalition of over 30 Bay Area organizations—led by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Arab Resource & Organizing Center Action, and the US Palestinian Community Network. This coalition is united around the demand to end Oakland’s complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people.