The United Kingdom’s Court of Appeal is expected to rule on Monday whether the British government was right to proscribe the Palestine Action activist group as a “terrorist” organisation.
Palestine Action was formally proscribed by the UK last July. A court in London ruled earlier this month that four activists convicted of criminal damage at a British facility owned by an Israeli weapons group would be sentenced on the basis that their actions had a “terrorist connection”.
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end of list The proscription of Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation has been challenged in the High Court, which ruled in February that the ban was unlawful. The government then appealed that decision.
What is Palestine Action and why was it proscribed?
Palestine Action is a British protest group which was founded six years ago and describes itself as a movement “committed to ending global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime”.
It says it uses “disruptive tactics” to target “corporate enablers” and companies involved in the manufacture of weapons for Israel, such as Israeli group Elbit Systems, Italian aerospace company Leonardo, French multinational Thales and Teledyne from the United States. The group has targeted British facilities linked to those companies.
In all, British police have said action by the group has resulted in millions of pounds of criminal damage.
Palestine Action’s protests include:
In 2021, members protested for six days on the roof of Elbit Systems’ subsidiary, UAV Tactical Systems in Leicester, until some were arrested by police.
In 2022, the group broke into a Thales equipment factory in Glasgow, causing damage to weapons worth more than a million pounds ($1.3m).
In 2024, 10 months into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Palestine Action activists broke into an Elbit Systems UK facility near Bristol in southwest England, causing another million pounds of damage.
On June 20, 2025, Palestine Action activists broke into the Royal Air Force base at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and sprayed two military aircraft with red paint.
Days after the Brize Norton attack, members of parliament voted in favour of proscribing the group. That classified Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation, bringing it into the same category as armed groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).
Critics decried the vote, arguing that while members of the group have caused damage to property, they have not committed violent acts that amount to terrorism.
More than 130 high-profile public figures have spoken out against the proscription.
At least 1,600 arrests linked to support for Palestine Action were made in the three months following the ban.
What is Monday’s Court of Appeal judgment about?
Last August, Palestine Action’s co-founder, Huda Ammori, challenged the government’s proscription in the High Court. In November, the High Court heard a three‑day judicial review.
In February, the High Court ruled that the government’s “terror group” ban was unlawful and disproportionate.
The government immediately said it would appeal. “I am disappointed by the court’s decision and disagree with the notion that banning this terrorist organisation is disproportionate,” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said.
“I intend to fight this judgment in the Court of Appeal.”
Although the High Court found the ban unlawful, the proscription remains in force, pending the outcome of the government’s appeal at the Court of Appeal on Monday.
Palestine Action protesters at the Royal Court of Justice in London, April 28, 2026 [Kin Cheung/AP] What is the broader context?
Four activists from the Palestine Action group were sentenced as “terrorists” on Friday, despite most of them only being convicted of criminal damage by a jury in May.
Dozens of protesters were arrested outside Woolwich Crown Court in London ahead of the sentencing of the four members of the group – Charlotte Head, 30, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21 – for causing criminal damage at the Elbit Systems facility in Filton, near Bristol in west England.
Corner was also found guilty of striking a police officer with a sledgehammer and convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm.
While the convictions are for criminal damage, the court had leeway to decide whether their actions were related to “terrorism”, which carries heavier penalties.
Judge Jeremy Johnson handed down sentences of about five to eight years to the four defendants after branding their August 2024 raid on the Elbit Systems site in Bristol a “terrorist act”.
Having their convictions linked to “terrorism” means the acti…
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