Terror arrests have surged by a staggering 660 per cent year-on-year because of support for Palestine Action, official figures reveal.
The pro-Palestine protest group was proscribed under terror laws in July this year. Hundreds of people have protested their terror ban by holding up signs saying “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” – an act that is now an offence under terrorism legislation.
Government figures published on Thursday show that of the 1,886 arrests in the year up to September for terrorism-related activity – 1,630 or 86 per cent are linked to supporting Palestine Action.
The total number of terrorism-related arrests in the previous year was 248. Those arrested for support for Palestine Action were 4.4 times more likely to be female, and were considerably older than those normally arrested for terror offences.
The average age for arrests linked to supporting Palestine Action was 57, compared to 30 for non-Palestine Action-linked arrests.
In the months before the proscription of Palestine Action, between April and June 2025, there were 63 arrests for terror-related activity. This then increased by 2,608 per cent after Palestine Action’s ban, with 1,706 arrests recorded from July to September.
Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori has challenged the group’s proscription in the High Court, with her barristers arguing that the impact of the ban was “dramatic, severe, widespread and potentially lifelong”.
Raza Husain KC told judges that the decision by then-home secretary Yvette Cooper to proscribe the organisation in June 2025 was “novel and unprecedented”. He told the court: “This is the first direct action civil disobedience organisation that does not advocate for violence ever to be proscribed as terrorism.”
He said that the decision, which Ms Cooper faltered over, was “so extreme as to render the UK an international outlier”.
The court heard that the Foreign Office had advised the Home Office that, while Palestine Action was active in other countries, “its activity is largely viewed by international partners as activism and not extremism or terrorism”.
Sir James Eadie KC, for the government, argued that it was for parliament to decide what acts constituted terrorism. He said that the home secretary had been advised by a group of security experts that certain actions of Palestine Action did qualify as terrorist acts.
The data comes after two police forces confirmed that they would arrest people for chanting “globalise the intifada”, saying that “the context has changed” following a targeted attack on Australia’s Jewish community in Sydney.
Two people have now been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated public order offences after shouting “slogans involving calls for intifada”, the Metropolitan Police said.
