Why was Palestine Action banned as a terror group and what will happen to the thousands arrested at protests?

Palestine Action’s co-founder has won a High Court challenge over the ban of the organisation as a terror group on two grounds, judges have said.

Huda Ammori sought legal action against the department over the then-home secretary Yvette Cooper’s decision to proscribe the group under the Terrorism Act 2000.

Three judges, led by president of the King’s bench division, Dame Victoria Sharp, ruled on Friday that the decision was unlawful.

The activist group had been allowed to challenge the Home Office over its proscription as a terrorist organisation after the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from the government agency.

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.

Revealing the intention to ban the group following the incident on 23 June 2025, 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, the offence being punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

At a hearing late last year, barristers for Ms Ammori told the court that the decision to ban the group was unlawful and should be quashed, with Palestine Action being the first “direct-action civil disobedience organisation that does not advocate for violence” to be proscribed as a terrorist group.

More than 2,500 people have been arrested on suspicion of publicly showing support for Palestine Action since it was banned.

Palestine Action remains banned as a terror group to allow further arguments and the government time to consider an appeal, judges said.

This means things remain as they are, for now. Should the Home Office ultimately rescind the conviction, then it would no longer be a crime to show support for Palestine Action.

Should this happen, those who have been arrested but not charged for this offence would likely see their cases dropped.

Meanwhile, those who have been charged would have strong legal grounds to have their cases dropped, and those who have already been convicted would have similar grounds to appeal their conviction.

In a summary of the High Court’s decision, Dame Victoria Sharp said: “The court considered that the proscription of Palestine Action was disproportionate.

“A very small number of Palestine Action’s activities amounted to acts of terrorism within the definition of Section 1 of the 2000 Act.

“For these, and for Palestine Action’s other criminal activities, the general criminal law remains available.

“The nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”

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 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.