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UK Court of Appeal to Rule on Legality of Palestine Action Ban and Terrorism-Linked Sentences
The Court of Appeal will decide whether the government’s July 2025 proscription of Palestine Action was lawful. The ruling comes one day after four activists received prison sentences of up to seven years and eight months.
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The United Kingdom’s Court of Appeal is scheduled to rule on Monday on whether the government’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was lawful. Palestine Action was formally proscribed in July 2025 after members of parliament voted in favour of the measure days after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and sprayed two military aircraft with red paint.
The High Court ruled in February 2026 that the proscription was unlawful and disproportionate.
The government appealed that decision, and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood stated at the time: “I am disappointed by the court’s decision and disagree with the notion that banning this terrorist organisation is disproportionate. ” The proscription has remained in force pending the Court of Appeal outcome. Palestine Action is a British protest group founded six years before June 2026.
It states it targets corporate enablers and companies involved in manufacturing weapons for Israel, including Elbit Systems, Leonardo, Thales, and Teledyne. British police have stated that the group’s actions have caused millions of pounds of criminal damage.
The group’s documented actions include a six-day rooftop protest at UAV Tactical Systems in Leicester in 2021, a 2022 break-in at a Thales factory in Glasgow that caused more than one million pounds in damage, and a 2024 raid on an Elbit Systems UK facility near Bristol that also caused one million pounds in damage.
On June 13, 2026, Judge Jeremy Johnson at Woolwich Crown Court sentenced four Palestine Action activists—Charlotte Head, 30, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21—after they were convicted in May 2026 of causing criminal damage at the Elbit Systems facility in Filton.
