Why was Palestine Action banned as a terror group and what will happen to arrested protesters?
The co-founder of Palestine Action won the Supreme Court case to ban the organization as a terrorist group on two grounds, judges said.
Huda Ammori took legal action against the ministry over then home secretary Yvette Cooper’s decision to ban the group under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Three judges, led by King’s bench chair Dame Victoria Sharp, ruled on Friday that the decision was unlawful.
The activist group was allowed to appeal against the Home Office’s ban as a terrorist organisation, after the Court of Appeal rejected the government body’s 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 aircraft.
The Palestine Movement, founded in 2020, has staged a series of direct action protests over the past five years against arms manufacturers operating largely in the UK and selling weapons to Israel.
Former home secretary Yvette Cooper, who announced her intention to ban the group after the incident on 23 June 2025, said it was the latest incident in a “long history of unacceptable criminal harm committed by Palestine Action”.
The ban branded the group as a terrorist organization and made it illegal to become affiliated with or solicit support for the Palestine Movement; The penalty for this crime is up to 14 years in prison.
At a hearing late last year, Ms Ammori’s lawyers told the court that the decision to ban the group was unlawful and should be annulled, saying that Palestine Action was the first “direct action civil disobedience organization that does not advocate violence” to be banned as a terrorist group.
What happens now to the arrested protesters?
More than 2,500 people have been arrested on suspicion of publicly showing support for Palestine Action since its ban.
The judges said the Palestine Movement remained banned as a terrorist group to allow for further discussion and to give the government time to consider its appeal.
This means that everything will remain as it is for now. If the Ministry of Internal Affairs ultimately annuls the conviction, it will no longer be a crime to show support for Palestine Action.
In such a case, the cases of those who are arrested but not charged with this crime are likely to be dropped.
Meanwhile, those accused will have strong legal grounds to have their cases dismissed, and those already convicted will have similar grounds to appeal their convictions.
In her summary of the High Court’s decision, Dame Victoria Sharp said: “The Court was of the opinion that the ban on Palestine Action was disproportionate.
“Very few activities of the Palestine Movement amounted to acts of terrorism within the definition of Article 1 of the 2000 Law.
“For these and other criminal activities of Palestine Action, the general criminal law remains valid.
“The nature and scale of the Palestine Movement’s activities that fall within the definition of terrorism have not yet reached the level, scale and continuity that would require prohibition.”
What has Palestine Action done in the past?
Palestine Action was formed on 30 July 2020 after a group of activists broke into Elbit Systems’ UK headquarters in London and spray-painted it.
The defense contractor has remained the main target of the Palestine Movement’s protests since its founding. Elbit Systems, headquartered in Israel, is the country’s largest arms manufacturer. It provides most of the unmanned aerial vehicles and ground-based equipment used by the Israeli army.
In the United Kingdom, Elbit has several UK subsidiaries operating in 16 sites across the country with 680 employees. Its latest facility is a manufacturing and development facility in Bristol opening in 2023.
On May 19, 2021, four overall-clad members of Palestine Action climbed onto the roof of an Elbit-owned drone factory in Leicester.
The action was in response to a period of unrest in May of the same year, in which 256 Palestinians and 17 Israelis were killed.
Similar occupations were carried out at Elbit’s facilities in Bristol, Oldham and Tamworth.
In April 2024, the group moved to Somerset Council’s II. He targeted the Somerset County Hall, a Grade II listed building, by splashing it with red paint. This was in response to the local authority leasing a building near Bristol to Elbit.
This site was targeted for the 17th time by Palestine Action in March 2025; Four of the group members damaged the building using a cherry picker. While one of them broke the windows with a sledgehammer tied to a rope, others spray-painted the building.
In June 2025, four activists allegedly part of the group are accused of damaging two aircraft at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire by using repurposed fire extinguishers to spray red paint onto turbine engines and cause further damage with crowbars.
South East Counter Terrorism Police said the four were charged with conspiracy to knowingly enter a restricted place for a purpose prejudicial to the security or interests of the United Kingdom and conspiracy to cause criminal damage. The Palestine Movement claimed responsibility for the incident, saying it was a protest against British support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
