Activist group Palestine Action has been allowed to challenge the Home Office in court over its prescription as a terrorist organisation, a judge has ruled.
The direct action group was banned by the Home Office after several of its members broke 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 June 23, Ms 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 200 people have been arrested on suspicion of publicly protesting support for Palestine Action since it was banned. One recent case saw a man arrested under the terrorism act for holding up a Private Eye cartoon at a demonstration in Leeds.
Delivering his judgement on Wednesday, Mr Justice Chamerlain said that Ms Ammori’s case against the government was “reasonably arguable,” and so should proceed to trial.
The judge added that a ruling on the ban may not come until 2026, saying it “will have an impact on the claimant's and others' freedom of expression and freedom to protest on an issue of considerable importance to them and, whether one agrees with them or not, to the country as a whole.”
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 new site is a manufacturing and development facility in Bristol, opened in 2023.
On 19 May 2021 four members of Palestine Action dressed in boilers 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 groups 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 damaged 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 United Kingdom, and conspiracy to commit criminal damage.
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