According to foreign media reports, Israel's Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd, has temporarily suspended operations at the Port of Long Beach.
The published reports according to an employee in Zim’s Long Beach office.
Though the company has not offered a reason for the suspension, the decision comes after protests in Long Beach and Oakland by the pro-Palestinian protest group, Block the Boat, which organized during this summer’s war in Gaza.
The Block the Boat, was organized by the San Francisco-based Arab Resource and Organizing Center and has been especially active in Oakland. The protesters have repeatedly made it difficult for Zim to unload its cargo at the ports of Long Beach and Oakland during scheduled unloading days over the past three months.
A Zim employee in Long Beach said that the suspension is "not a long-term thing." He did not say whether it was the protests that prompted Zim’s decision.
On Wednesday morning, a spokesman for Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. in Israel denied in an interview the reports that the shipping company has suspended its operations in Long Beach and Oakland.
He said Zim’s operations and shipments have not been impacted by the presence of protestors aligned with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement or the Block the Boat movement.
