Palestine Action
Updated: Wikipedia source
Palestine Action is a British pro-Palestinian direct action network. Founded in 2020 with the stated goal of ending global participation in Israel's "genocidal and apartheid regime", the organisation also became active in the Gaza war protests in the United Kingdom, in the wake of the ongoing Gaza genocide. The group uses direct action to disrupt the UK arms industry, which it accuses of being complicit with Israel in conducting a genocide. Palestine Action have mounted 45 documented direct actions in the United Kingdom. Key targets have been British factories of Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems and RAF Brize Norton base. In their campaigns, Palestine Action have used protest, occupation of premises, destruction of property, and vandalism, which sometimes resulted in its members being arrested. A protest action on 6 August 2024 resulted in a charge of grievous bodily harm after an activist allegedly struck a police officer with a sledgehammer, and a protest on 16 March 2025 resulted in three activists being charged with one count each of assault by beating. The British government proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist group on 5 July 2025 under the UK's Terrorism Act 2000 after members of the network vandalised Royal Air Force aircraft at Brize Norton. Since then, British police have arrested at least 2,489 individuals for showing support to Palestine Action, many of these resulting from sit-ins on Parliament Square on 9 August 2025 and 6 September 2025, and on Trafalgar Square on 4 October 2025. A further 24 silent vigils are planned for November 2025. Civil liberties groups have criticised the ban as conflating protest with terrorism.