Elbit Systems Ltd is Israel’s largest arms producer, and the 24th biggest arms producer globally. Headquartered in Haifa, its portfolio includes munitions, combat vehicles, drones, electronic warfare systems, cybersecurity technologies, and other weapons and surveillance systems. It also has a significant cybersecurity subsidiary, Cyberbit. Cyberbit was created when Elbit acquired the cyber and Intelligence division of NICE Systems, an Israeli company providing communications surveillance solutions.
Elbit Systems was founded in 1966 as Elbit Computers Ltd by Elron Electronic Industries and the Israel’s Ministry of Defense. It announced 2024 revenues of US$ 6.8 billion. Israel is the single largest market for Elbit’s products; Europe and North America are its second and third largest markets, respectively. In mid-2025 it reported an order backlog worth US$ 22.6 billion, approximately two-thirds of which was to customers outside Israel. Elbit has dozens of subsidiaries, including in Australia, Brazil, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US.
Elbit in the UK
Elbit’s principle UK subsidiary, Elbit Systems Limited UK, with a workforce of over 680. Elbit has several further subsidiaries located across 16 sites in the UK. Elbit’s UK companies export globally, particularly to Israel. Elbit UK Ltd has obtained two UK military export licenses to the country since 2021.
Elbit’s joint venture with Thales, U-TacS (UAV Tactical Systems Ltd), produces the Watchkeeper drone, a version of Elbit’s Hermes 450 drone, which is being built for the British armed forces. U-TacS has obtained 13 UK military export licenses to Israel since 2021.
Elbit subsidiary UAV Engines Ltd (UEL) produces engine parts. It may have produced UK-made R902(W) Wankel engines used in an Israeli Hermes 450 drone that killed British aid workers in Gaza in April 2024, according to analysis by CAAT. The company has obtained six UK military export licenses to Israel since 2021.
Elbit subsidiary Instro Precision Limited produces targetting equipment and technologies, notably the SpectroXR imaging system for Israeli drones, among them the Hermes 900. The company has obtained 25 UK military export licenses to Israel since 2021. It also produces night vision goggles for the UK military.
Drones and fighter aircraft
Elbit describes its drones as “the backbone” of Israel’s drone fleet and states that they are “in service with numerous military and security users worldwide”, some of which are profiled below.
Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories
Elbit’s Hermes 900 drone has extensively used to surveil Gaza for over 15 years – GCHQ had hacked IDF Hermes drone feeds as early as 2009, according to leaked documents. Elbit’s Laser imaging detection and ranging (Lidar) products have been used to map Gaza’s underground tunnel networks. Elbit’s have long been used in strikes that have killed Palestinian civilians. In one widely publicised 2014 case, the Intercept reported that Hermes 450 drones were used in the murder of four Palestinian children as they played on a beach. Hermes 450 drones have been implicated in attacks against humanitarian workers in Gaza in April 2024, and in southern Lebanon in March 2024. The Israeli military deployed Hermes 900 drones equipped with Spike MR guided missiles in Gaza in 2021.
Elbit technologies equip Israel’s fleet of F-16 fighter jets, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, which have been extensively used in Gaza. Elbit is also heavily involved in Israel’s air force training facilities.
Other customers
Elbit exports its products extensively globally – a few recent drone customers include the Royal Thai Navy, and the Myanmar government, and the company was seeking customers for its Watchkeeper drone in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, according to Intelligence Online. Elbit drones have been used by Azeri forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, according to local press.
Border technologies
Elbit has a wide portfolio of border control technologies and has become something of a global leader in border technology provision. Elbit products have been deployed not only within Israel and Palestine since 2002, but also in Europe. The EU border force has awarded contacts to companies including Elbit to surveil the Mediterannean, and the UK is using Elbit drones to watch for migrants crossing the Channel. The company’s American subsidiary, Elbit Systems of America, has received significant contracts for border control technologies from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. These have included an in-fill radar system and tower along the Texas-Mexico border in 2017 and additional towers worth US$ 26 million in 2019. In the US, Elbit is constructing scores of surveillance towers in the borderlands.
Communication interception and spyware
Elbit has provided significant communications interception capacities to a range of goverments who have deployed them to target dissidents and activists domestically. Ethiopian dissidents in exile in the US and UK have been targeted by Cyberbit’s PC Surveillance System (PSS) malware, according to research published in 2017 by CitizenLab. CitizenLab found that Cyberbit staff had provided demonstrations of PSS to the clients in Thailand, Uzbeistan, Zambia, the Philippines, France, Kazakhstan, Rwanda, Serbia and Nigeria. CitizenLab also identified two activists in Serbia who were been targeted with Cyberbit’s malware in 2023. In 2023, Intelligence Online reported that Elbit won a contract to supply the Finnish government with radar and communications interceptions systems.
Navigation and military communications technologies
Elbit won a contract to equip the Czech air force’s 17 Mi-24 large helicopter gunships with helmet visors and a digital pilot and guidance interface, according to Intelligence Online, which also reported that in 2025, Elbit exported military-grade antennas and transceivers to Vietnam. In May 2024, Cyberbit was awarded a contract to provide cyber simulation services the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD).
Campaign and protest actions
Elbit is frequently targeted for legal action and protest; a sample of such actions is included below.
Gaza conflict
Since the start of the most recent Israeli campaign in Gaza in October 2023, Palestine Action protestors targeted factories associated with Elbit in the UK.
Protestors blocked the entrance of the Instro Precision Factory in Sandwich, Kent in 2023 and again in 2024. In October 2023, Palestine Action protestors in Leicester accessed the Howmet Fastening Systems factory and a protester chained themself to the entrance of the factory that produces U-TacS drones. In August 2024, members of Palestine Action allegedly broke into an Elbit Systems site near Bristol, causing UK£ 1 million in damage, in the early hours of 6 August 2024. Six protestors were arrested and are awaiting trial. In February 2025, Palestine Action targeted Elbit’s insurer Aviva’s offices in Scotland to protest Aviva’s support to Elbit and Elbit’s supply of drones to the IDF. In September 2025, Elbit’s UK site at the the Aztec West business park in Bristol closed unexpectedly; the facility had been subject to dozens of protests previously.
Protestors in the US have also consistently targeted Elbit’s US headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Elbit has also been targeted by a wide range institutional divestment campaigns, from banks to universities. US campaign group CodePink has also urged cyclists to boycott its civilian Everysight cycling glasses.
Myanmar
In 2022, campaign group Justice for Myanmar filed an application for a criminal investigation over Elbit’s alleged provision of arms to the Myanmar military via a subsidiary. Elbit responded that it had previously terminated its business in Myanmar.
