Activist group Palestine Action has been allowed to challenge the Home Office in court over its proscription as a terrorist organisation, after the Court of Appeal dismissed a Home Office appeal.
The direct action group was banned by the government after several of its members were accused of breaking into an Oxfordshire RAF base to spray-paint military planes.
Formed in 2020, Palestine Action has conducted a series of direct action protests over the past five years, largely against arms manufacturers operating in the UK and selling weapons to Israel.
Unveiling the intention to ban the group following the incident on 23 June, former home secretary Yvette Cooper said it was the latest in a “long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine Action”.
Proscription has branded the group a terrorist organisation and made it illegal to become a member of Palestine Action or solicit support for it.
Co-founder of the group Huda Ammori had sought to challenge the government’s decision, with her lawyers arguing that the ban breaches the right to free speech and is gagging legitimate protest.
Around 2,000 people have been arrested on suspicion of publicly showing support for Palestine Action since it was banned.
Building cases against all of the protesters is placing a “big burden” on counterterrorism officers, said Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner.
Almost 500 were hauled away by officers for holding placards declaring “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” at the most recent demonstration in Trafalgar Square earlier this month.
In a summary of the Court of Appeal’s decision dismissing the Home Office’s appeal, the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said: “An application to deproscribe, with right of appeal to POAC (the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission) was not intended to be a means of challenging the initial decision.”
She added: “Judicial review would be a quicker means of challenging the order proscribing Palestine Action than applying to deproscribe.”
What else has Palestine Action done in the past?
Palestine Action was established on 30 July 2020 after a group of activists broke into and spray-painted the interior of Elbit Systems’ UK headquarters in London.
The defence contractor has continued to be the main target of Palestine Action’s protests since its formation. Based in Israel, Elbit Systems is the country’s largest weapons manufacturer. It supplies the majority of the drones and land-based equipment used by the Israeli military.
In the UK, Elbit has multiple UK subsidiaries which operate across 16 sites across the country, with 680 employees. Its latest site is a manufacturing and development facility in Bristol, opened in 2023.
On 19 May 2021, four members of Palestine Action dressed in boiler suits climbed onto the roof of an Elbit-owned drone factory in Leicester.
The action was taken in response to a period of unrest in May of that year, in which 256 Palestinians and 17 Israelis were killed.
Similar occupations have been carried out at Elbit-owned sites in Bristol, Oldham and Tamworth.
In April 2024, the group targeted Somerset County Hall, a Grade II-listed building owned by Somerset Council, by splashing it with red paint. This was in response to the local authority leasing a building to Elbit near Bristol.
This site was targeted by Palestine Action for the 17th time in March 2025, with four of the group’s members using a cherry picker to damage the building. One used a sledgehammer on a rope to smash windows, while others spray-painted the building.
In June 2025, four activists allegedly part of the group are accused of damaging two planes at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire by using repurposed fire extinguishers to spray red paint into their turbine engines and cause further damage with crowbars.
Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE) said the four had been charged with conspiracy to enter a prohibited place knowingly for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK, and conspiracy to commit criminal damage. Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the incident, saying it was a protest against the UK's support of Israel's war in Gaza.
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