Northrop Grumman Corporation
American arms manufacturer, the world's third largest by sales. It builds the centre fuselage and radar fitted to every F-35, the fire-control radar and electronic warfare system on the F-16, and the Longbow radar for the Apache helicopter, the three aircraft types the Israeli military has used against Gaza. In December 2023 it sold 30mm cannons directly to the Israeli Ministry of Defence. It sells nothing to consumers, so the pressure sits with investors and governments.
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- Contact Corporate LeadershipPre-filled letters to the chief executive, the Lead Independent Director and the board's Policy Committee
- Report New IntelligenceMost wanted: further Israeli foreign military sales contracts naming Northrop, and the platform each MK44 order arms
- Share This ProfileShare with pension trustees, endowment officers and procurement contacts
- View Strategic AnalysisWhere the leverage sits when the customer is Washington, not Tel Aviv
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Decision-Maker Directory
Key individuals with influence over corporate partnerships and procurement decisions. The contact details shown are published business addresses, listed for professional correspondence only. Write to the role, not the person, and keep correspondence courteous and factual. Repeated, abusive or personal contact is unlawful harassment and damages the case being made.
Material Risk Framing
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Northrop sold 30mm cannons directly to the Israeli Ministry of Defence under a foreign military sales contract announced on 15 December 2023. On 26 January 2024 the International Court of Justice found a real and imminent risk to the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide, and ordered Israel to prevent them. On 16 September 2025 the UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. UN experts had already called on arms manufacturers to halt transfers.
Norway's Government Pension Fund Global excluded Northrop Grumman on 5 January 2006 under its product-based criterion for the production of nuclear weapons, and the exclusion still stood in August 2026. Don't Buy Into Occupation, a coalition of European and Palestinian organisations, screened Northrop among 104 businesses in November 2025 and mapped European lenders' and investors' exposure to them. Of $41.95 billion of 2025 sales, $35.18 billion came from the US government.
The American Friends Service Committee places Northrop on the BDS Divestment Shortlist and tags it Gaza Genocide. The Palestinian-led BDS movement lists it among the military-security companies institutions are asked to divest from. Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited Northrop on 3 July 2024 to answer UN experts on arms transfers to Israel, and recorded a non-response. Campaign Against Arms Trade led a protest at its London site in November 2025.
Northrop's route to Israel runs through the US Foreign Military Sales programme, which its own 2025 annual report flags as a risk: changes to US government policy on those sales could significantly affect its international business. Its F-35 centre fuselage line draws parts from suppliers in Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. About 5,000 staff work across ten UK sites, and its UK arm holds export licences for 59 countries.
Strategic Analysis
In-depth assessment of the company's position, vulnerabilities, and recommended approaches for effective engagement.
High severity, lower vulnerability — requires long-term divestment pressure
Severity
8.0/10
(8 + 8) ÷ 2 = 8.0
Strategic Vulnerability
3.0/10
(4 + 2) ÷ 2 = 3.0
Learn about our methodology — companies are categorised based on severity (harm potential) vs strategic vulnerability (campaign leverage).
Why do these scores change?
Unlike static boycott lists, our targeting model is dynamic. This company's position on the matrix is re-evaluated continually as we verify new contracts, divestments, or policy changes. Your reporting directly impacts this score.
Northrop Grumman builds the centre fuselage and the AN/APG-81 radar fitted to every F-35, the fire-control radar and electronic warfare system on Israel's F-16s, and the Longbow radar for the Apache helicopter. The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organisation that documents companies profiting from the occupation, records the Israeli military using all three aircraft types against Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The International Court of Justice held Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful on 19 July 2024. On 15 December 2023 the Pentagon awarded Northrop $8,856,018 for 30mm cannons sold directly to the Israeli Ministry of Defence. Northrop is a subcontractor rather than a prime, and its parts reach Israel through Washington, so the pressure runs through investors and export policy rather than a customer relationship it could end (sources).
Key Leverage Points
- Take the Palestinian unions' demand to the shop floor. Over thirty Palestinian trade unions and professional associations issued a joint call to stop arming Israel, and their Who Arms Israel? toolkit names Northrop Grumman among the American companies building the F-35. Their demand is specific: halt production of military goods for Israel, and refuse to move them. Put it to the union branch at a Northrop site, to the freight handlers who ship the parts, and to the engineering department that supplies its graduates, and ask each to adopt the call by motion.
- Quote the contract number, not the general claim. On 15 December 2023 the Pentagon announced contract N0016424CJ001: $8,856,018 for 30mm MK44 Stretch cannons, sole-sourced and funded entirely by Israeli money. It is small, and that is what makes it useful: it is checkable in a public database, and it is a sale to the Israeli Ministry of Defence ten weeks into the assault on Gaza. Send it to any trustee told the link is speculative.
- Use the exclusion your fund already accepts. Norway's Government Pension Fund Global excluded Northrop Grumman on 5 January 2006 under its product-based criterion, for producing nuclear weapons. A fund that already excludes on what a company makes has conceded the principle, and the argument narrows to which product. Ask your pension scheme, university or charity what it holds, and on what criterion.
- Hold the human rights policy to its own reference point. Northrop's published policy cites the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and its board's Policy Committee takes reports from an internal Human Rights Working Group. Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited the company on 3 July 2024 to answer UN experts who had called on arms makers to halt transfers to Israel, and recorded a non-response. Ask the Policy Committee, through the corporate secretary, what the working group concluded.
- Go at the supply chain, not the balance sheet. Northrop's F-35 centre fuselage line is fed by suppliers in Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. Each of those governments licenses its own firms into the programme, and each has a parliament that can be asked what conditions it attaches.
Evidence Summary
Northrop's own site states that it produces the F-35's centre fuselage, AN/APG-81 radar and communications subsystems for all three variants. Israel flies the aircraft as the F-35I, and the Israeli military said it first used F-35s in combat in Gaza in 2021. For Israel's F-16 fleet AFSC Investigate records Northrop's AN/APG-68(V)9 fire-control radar and ALQ-131 electronic warfare system, and it records Israeli F-16s bombing Gaza City's Rimal neighbourhood that same year.
The Apache line is older and more heavily documented. Northrop makes the AN/APG-78 Longbow fire-control radar with Lockheed Martin, and AFSC records contracts since at least 1998 to modernise Israel's Apaches to the Longbow configuration. In 2014 Apache-fired Hellfire missiles killed at least 51 people, 24 of them children, in incidents the UN Human Rights Office identified as a direct attack on civilians and a war crime.
Set against Boeing or Lockheed Martin this is a thinner case, and the difference is worth keeping visible. Northrop's one documented direct sale to the Israeli state is the December 2023 cannon order. Of $41.95 billion of 2025 sales, $35.18 billion came from the US government, and its international business is booked through the Foreign Military Sales programme, which its own annual report names as a policy risk. That is the shape of the target: a supplier whose exposure is decided in Washington and on a share register.
Engagement Strategy
Northrop answers to the US government and to shareholders, so every route runs through one of them.
- Pension funds, endowments and charities. Ask what they hold and on what exclusion criterion, and put Norway's 2006 product-based exclusion in front of them as a working precedent.
- Legislators and export licensing authorities. Foreign military sales to Israel are notified to legislatures before they proceed; ask yours what has been notified and what it did.
- The board. Write to the Policy Committee through the corporate secretary in Falls Church, and ask how the human rights policy was applied to the December 2023 sale.
- Unions and universities. Bring the Palestinian unions' call to branches, campuses and supplier towns, and ask for it by motion.
Evidence & Sources
Verified sources including NGO reports, regulatory filings, and primary documents. Use these to substantiate your correspondence. Entries marked First-hand were reported directly to this site and are published without identifying the source.
The company's own statement of its role: "Northrop Grumman produces the aircraft's center fuselage, AN/APG-81 AESA radar, communications subsystems and provides sustainment support for the EODAS." It designs and produces the centre fuselage "for each of the three F-35 variants", including the weapons bay doors and door drive systems, and provides centre fuselage engineering for "country-specific production variants". Israel flies the F-35 as the F-35I.
Open sourceThe company's published policy states a commitment to human rights framed on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and cites the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as "a source of guidance". It records that "The Human Rights Working Group, senior management and our Board of Directors provide oversight" of the policy. The standard the company sets for itself, and the reference point for any letter asking how it applies to arms transfers.
Open sourceThe exclusion list of Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, records: "Northrop Grumman Corp | Product-based | Production of nuclear weapons | Exclusion | 05.01.2006". Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, L3Harris and Huntington Ingalls Industries are excluded on the same product-based criterion. A fund that already applies product-based exclusion has conceded the principle campaigners are asking others to adopt.
Open sourceThe Palestinian-led BDS movement lists Northrop Grumman under "Military-security companies (including those implicated in arming Israel's Gaza genocide)", alongside BAE Systems, Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, RTX and others. The page describes the list as non-exhaustive and dynamic, and directs institutions to the AFSC, UN, Who Profits and Don't Buy Into Occupation databases for divestment screening.
Open sourceRecords Northrop as the third largest arms company in the world on SIPRI's ranking, with $37.8 billion of arms revenue in 2024, about 92% of total revenue, and 87% of 2024 sales to the US government. Under "Israel and the Palestinian territories" it states that the company's products and technologies "have been extensively used by the Israel Defense Force", that F-35s are "widely used globally, including by Israel in Gaza", and that the Israeli military also uses the F-16 and the Apache, "for which it contributes the AN/APG-78 Longbow fire-control radar system". Records about 5,000 UK staff across ten sites, export licences for 59 countries, and a protest led by CAAT at Northrop's London site in November 2025. Last updated 28 April 2026.
Open sourceRecords that the board's Policy Committee oversees "risks related to human rights, health and safety, corporate social responsibility and political contributions" and receives "Updates from the Chair of the Human Rights Working Group". Kathy J. Warden is Chair, Chief Executive Officer and President; James S. Turley was designated Lead Independent Director on Madeleine A. Kleiner's retirement in May 2026. Gives the address for shareholder and public correspondence to any director: Office of the Corporate Secretary, 2980 Fairview Park Drive, Falls Church, Virginia. One shareholder proposal reached the 2026 agenda, seeking an independent board chair; the board opposed it.
Open sourceRecords that Huntington Ingalls Industries was spun off from Northrop Grumman Corporation, and that Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi is one of its three reportable segments. Ingalls built the Israeli Navy's three Sa'ar 5 corvettes, delivered from 1993; Northrop acquired the yard with Litton Industries in 2001 and spun it off in March 2011, so the shipbuilding tie is a former one.
Open sourceReports 2025 sales of $41,954 million, of which $35,183 million (84%) came from the US government, $5,990 million from international customers and $781 million from other customers. Total backlog of $95.7 billion at 31 December 2025, up from $91.5 billion. Approximately 95,000 employees. States that international sales "include foreign military sales contracted through the U.S. government", and flags that "Changes to the U.S. government's policies regarding FMS could significantly impact our international business".
Open sourceNorthrop Grumman is among the 104 businesses screened. The report identifies 1,115 European financial institutions with financial relationships to those businesses, $310 billion in loans and underwriting between January 2023 and August 2025, and $1,503 billion in shares and bonds held at 31 August 2025. Research by Profundo; foreword by Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory.
Open sourceThe Commission of Inquiry, a panel of independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, concluded that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, finding that four of the five acts of genocide defined in the Genocide Convention were committed. The finding is confined to Gaza.
Open sourcePublished by the initiative of over thirty Palestinian trade unions and professional associations that issued a joint call to end all complicity and stop arming Israel. Names Northrop Grumman among the biggest US arms companies supplying Israel and maps the F-35 supply chain site by site across the United States and Europe, including Kitron in Norway supplying communication and navigation modules to Northrop Grumman for the F-35. Records that Israel ordered 75 F-35s, had taken delivery of 36 by the end of 2022, bases them at Nevatim, and that the Israeli military said it used F-35s in combat for the first time in Gaza in 2021. States the Palestinian unions' demand: "halt arms production and disrupt the supply of military goods to Israel".
Open sourceThe Court issued arrest warrants for crimes against humanity and war crimes including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.
Open sourceCampaign documentation of Northrop Grumman's supply to Israel, recording the Longbow system for AH-64D Apaches, radar engineering services for F-15 and F-16 jets, the LITENING targeting pod developed with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and the three Sa'ar 5 missile ships. Records a 2002 23-year, $487 million agreement covering F-16 fire-control radar engineering services for the United States, Israel and fifteen other countries, and a 2008 partnership with Israel Aerospace Industries. Lists university divestment resolutions from 2005 to 2016 at the University of Chicago, UCLA, Wesleyan, York and Carleton.
Open sourceThe product-level record, tagged Gaza Genocide and Weapons and Military Equipment, and marked "On the BDS Divestment Shortlist". Records that Northrop "plays a critical role" in components for the F-35 and "has an agreement with Israel's largest military contractor, Elbit Systems, to provide components for the Israeli Air Force's F-35 aircraft"; that it makes the ALQ-131 warfare system and AN/APG-68(V)9 fire-control radar for Israel's F-16s, used in 2021 to bomb Gaza City's Rimal neighbourhood; that it makes the AN/APG-78 Longbow fire-control radar through a joint venture with Lockheed Martin and has been contracted since at least 1998 to modernise Israel's Apaches to the AH-64D Longbow configuration; and that in 2014 Apache-fired Hellfire missiles killed at least 51 people including 24 children in incidents the UN Human Rights Office identified as "a direct attack against civilian objects or civilians, a war crime under international criminal law". Page valid as of 5 August 2024.
Open sourceThe Resource Centre invited Northrop Grumman on 3 July 2024 to respond to the UN experts' call for an immediate halt to arms transfers to Israel, and records that the company did not respond. The same exercise records non-responses from Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, RTX, Boeing, Honeywell and Rheinmetall, and responses from BAE Systems, Maersk and thyssenkrupp.
Open sourceUN human rights experts called on states and arms manufacturers to halt transfers of weapons, parts and ammunition to Israel, warning that continuing to transfer them risks responsibility for human rights violations and complicity in international crimes. Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and Campaign Against Arms Trade both record Northrop Grumman among the companies covered by the call.
Open sourceThe International Court of Justice found a real and imminent risk to the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide, and ordered Israel to prevent them. The legal framework on which export licensing, procurement and institutional exclusion decisions rest.
Open sourceThe federal spending record for the same contract, signed 18 December 2023 and valued at $8,382,414 as obligated. Records the foreign funding category as "FOREIGN FUNDS FMS", the solicitation procedure as "ONLY ONE SOURCE" and the exception to competition as "INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT (FAR 6.302-4)". Product code 1005, "GUNS, THROUGH 30MM". Confirms the transfer independently of the Pentagon's press announcement.
Open sourceThe Pentagon announced that Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Plymouth, Minnesota, was awarded an $8,856,018 firm-fixed-price contract for 30mm MK44 Stretch cannons "with associated spares, tools, and gauges as a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract under the Foreign Military Sales program to the Israeli Ministry of Defense". Work at Mesa, Arizona, completion by 31 March 2025. "FMS (Israel) customer funds in the amount of $8,856,018 (100%) will be obligated at time of award." Not competitively procured. Contracting activity: Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane, Indiana (N0016424CJ001). The single documented direct sale from Northrop Grumman to the Israeli state.
Open sourceUpdates & Milestones
- Annual meeting votes on board structure
The single shareholder proposal on the agenda of the 2026 annual meeting sought an independent board chair, and the board opposed it. Human rights oversight remains with the board's Policy Committee, which receives updates from an internal Human Rights Working Group.
- Record backlog reported
Northrop Grumman reports 2025 sales of $41.95 billion, of which $35.18 billion came from the US government, and a total backlog of $95.7 billion, up from $91.5 billion a year earlier.
- Screened in Don't Buy Into Occupation V
Northrop Grumman is among the 104 businesses screened in the coalition's fifth report, which maps 1,115 European financial institutions' credit and investment exposure to them.
- Protest at the London site
Campaign Against Arms Trade leads a protest at Northrop Grumman's London site, part of a UK footprint of about 5,000 staff across ten locations.
- Commission of Inquiry finds genocide in Gaza
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concludes that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The finding is confined to Gaza.
- Company does not answer the Resource Centre
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invites Northrop Grumman to respond to the UN experts' call and records a non-response, alongside Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, RTX, Boeing, Honeywell and Rheinmetall. BAE Systems, Maersk and thyssenkrupp answered.
- UN experts call on arms manufacturers to stop
UN human rights experts call on states and companies to end transfers of weapons, parts and ammunition to Israel, warning of responsibility for human rights violations and complicity in international crimes. Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and Campaign Against Arms Trade both record Northrop Grumman among the companies covered.
- ICJ orders Israel to prevent acts of genocide
The International Court of Justice finds a real and imminent risk to the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide, and orders Israel to prevent them, the order that fixes a duty of prevention on states and, through them, on the suppliers they license.
- Cannons sold to the Israeli Ministry of Defence
The US Department of Defense announces contract N0016424CJ001: $8,856,018 to Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. for 30mm MK44 Stretch cannons with spares, tools and gauges, as a foreign military sale to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, funded 100% by Israeli customer funds and not competitively procured.
- Israeli F-35s and F-16s used over Gaza
The Israeli military stated that it used F-35s in combat in Gaza for the first time, and AFSC Investigate records Israeli F-16 warplanes bombing Gaza City's Rimal neighbourhood. Northrop Grumman builds the F-35's centre fuselage and AN/APG-81 radar, and the F-16's AN/APG-68(V)9 fire-control radar and ALQ-131 electronic warfare system.
- Orbital ATK acquired; naval targets supplied to Israel
Northrop Grumman completes the purchase of Orbital ATK, bringing in armament systems including the Bushmaster and MK44 cannon lines and tactical solid rocket motors. In the same year the US Department of Defense contracts the Northrop subsidiary Orbital Sciences to supply Israel with GQM-163A Coyote supersonic sea-skimming target vehicles.
- Apache strikes documented in Gaza
AFSC Investigate records that during Israel's 50-day assault on Gaza, Apache-fired Hellfire missiles killed at least 51 people, including 24 children, and injured at least 66 others, in incidents the UN Human Rights Office identified as "a direct attack against civilian objects or civilians, a war crime under international criminal law". Northrop Grumman makes the Apache's Longbow fire-control radar through a joint venture with Lockheed Martin.
- Avionics for Israel's trainer fleet
Northrop Grumman Italia supplies the LISA-200 attitude and heading reference system for the Israeli military's fleet of M-346 advanced trainer aircraft, within a larger Northrop Grumman avionics upgrade contract for the programme.
- Shipbuilding spun off
Northrop Grumman spins off its shipbuilding unit, including Ingalls, as Huntington Ingalls Industries. The Sa'ar 5 relationship passes out of Northrop Grumman with it.
- Sa'ar 5 corvette used against the Gaza flotilla
AFSC Investigate records that a Sa'ar 5 missile ship was used by the Israeli Navy during its assault on the Mavi Marmara, an unarmed Turkish aid ship attempting to deliver supplies to Gaza, in which Israeli commandos killed nine activists.
- Litton Industries acquired
Northrop Grumman acquires Litton Industries, bringing the Ingalls shipyard and Litton's defence electronics into the group. The original Northrop Grumman Corporation is renamed Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, the entity that later holds the Israeli cannon contract.
- Apache modernisation contracts begin
AFSC Investigate records that Northrop Grumman has been contracted since at least 1998 to modernise Israel's AH-64A Apache helicopters to the AH-64D Apache Longbow configuration, work Human Rights Watch documented as part of a wider Israeli request for Apache equipment and Longbow Hellfire missiles.
- First Sa'ar 5 corvette delivered
Ingalls Shipbuilding of Pascagoula, Mississippi, then owned by Litton Industries, delivers the first of three Sa'ar 5 class corvettes to the Israeli Navy, built to Israeli designs. Northrop Grumman acquires Litton in 2001 and spins the yard off as Huntington Ingalls Industries in March 2011.