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The military contractor<\/span> responsible for a Southern California chemical leak that forced as many as 50,000 people to evacuate their homes over the weekend manufactures parts of F-35 fighter jets likely bound for Israel, The Intercept has learned.<\/p>\n The Garden Grove, Calif., GKN Aerospace plant,<\/a> whose 7,000-gallon chemical tank ruptured last week and threatened to explode, has brought in more than $13 million since 2017 in subcontracts with military manufacturing giant Lockheed Martin, according to an analysis<\/a> of federal contract data<\/a> conducted by the Palestinian Youth Movement and independently verified by The Intercept. Further analysis<\/a> of F-35 production for Israel conducted in 2025 by Ploughshares, a Canadian independent research institute, found that Lockheed doles out subcontracts to hundreds of companies across more than a dozen countries to help build the jets. Among them is GKN Aerospace Transparency Inc., the GKN subsidiary based in Garden Grove, which raked in more than $255 million from subcontracts with Lockheed Martin.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhile GKN chases contracts and profits, our community pays the price with school closures and disrupted livelihoods,\u201d Sarah Awaida, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement and Garden Grove resident who was evacuated due to the leak, said at a press conference in the city on Tuesday. \u201cAnd our people abroad pay the price when the same weapon systems produced here are used to massacre people in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Iran and all across the region.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Garden Grove is a predominantly working-class and immigrant city in Orange County, just outside of Los Angeles. The evacuation order, which has since been lifted, disproportionately affected residents who are lower income.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile GKN chases contracts and profits, our community pays the price with school closures and disrupted livelihoods.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n GKN Aerospace describes its Garden Grove plant as \u201cthe leading provider<\/a>\u201d of the acrylic bubble that encases the F-35 fighter jet cockpit, known as a transparency canopy. Methyl methacrylate, the highly flammable chemical that began to leak from the facility last week, is a key ingredient in the protective bubbles.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDue to the nature of the F-35\u2019s global supply chain, it is likely that the F-35 components produced at the Garden Grove facility are incorporated into aircraft exported to Israel,\u201d said John Ramming Chappell, advocacy and legal advisor at Center for Civilians in Conflict. \u201cThis is the same type of aircraft that the Israeli military has used to kill civilians and violate international humanitarian law.\u201d<\/p>\n Since American military pilots landed<\/a> Israel\u2019s first two F-35 stealth fighter jets at the Nevatim airbase in 2016 \u2014 an occasion celebrated with a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayahu, Obama administration officials, and Lockheed Martin executives \u2014 the Israeli military has amassed a fleet of 48 F-35 jets, most of them paid for with funding from the U.S. State Department. Earlier this year, amid its genocide in Gaza and ongoing wars in Iran and Lebanon, the Israeli government announced its plans to double<\/a> its F-35 fleet to 100. The Israeli military\u2019s use of the jets has been tied to repeated allegations of war crimes, including the targeting of civilians in Gaza. Hundreds of human rights and civil society organizations have called on governments to halt their roles <\/a>in F-35 production for Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the same type of aircraft that the Israeli military has used to kill civilians and violate international humanitarian law.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n On May 19, several days before the leak began, Garden Grove city officials issued a permit<\/a> for a 34,000-square-foot expansion of GKN Aerospace\u2019s facility. On its website, the company cited increasing demand<\/a> for F-35 jets as the reason for the expansion, which would enable the company to double its production of aircraft canopies.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Tuesday, the Palestinian Youth Movement led a coalition of groups in launching a campaign seeking the closure of GKN Aerospace\u2019s Garden Grove facility. Alongside VietRise, the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice, OC Justice for Palestine, and Donald Torres, a city council member from neighboring Stanton, Calif., who was also displaced by the chemical leak, they\u2019re also pushing for a citywide moratorium on military manufacturing contracts and expansion permits and the creation of a half-mile buffer zone between military manufacturers and residential areas in the city.<\/p>\n The coalition presented its demands on Tuesday evening during a packed Garden Grove City Council meeting. Speakers criticized the city for turning a blind eye to GKN\u2019s string of concerning incidents. In recent years, the company agreed to pay nearly $1 million to settle charges of environmental violations such as a failure to maintain records of emissions and operating equipment without a permit. Earlier, the company had been penalized for not properly inspecting its machinery and was fined for labor safety violations.<\/p>\n \u201cThis crisis was not unpredictable,\u201d said Layal Bata, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement. \u201cIt is the result of a company and an industry that prioritizes war profiteering over people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Garden Grove and GKN Aerospace did not respond to The Intercept\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n
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