UK to outlaw Palestine Action group after it damaged military aircraft

The United Kingdom announced on Monday that it intends to outlaw the group Palestine Action under the country’s anti-terrorism laws. The decision comes after the radical anti-Israel group damaged two British Air Force planes last week in protest against what it claims is Britain’s support for Israel in the ongoing war in the Middle East. As a result of London’s legal move, it will become a criminal offense to belong to Palestine Action in the UK.

The British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called the group’s vandalism of the two British military planes "disgraceful".

She further stressed that the group has a “long history” of criminal activities and argued that following the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, "its activity has increased in frequency and severity."

"The UK's defense enterprise is vital to the nation's national security and this government will not tolerate those that put that security at risk," Cooper stated. The Home Secretary added that the group also attacks "financial firms, charities, universities and government buildings." 

"Its activities meet the threshold set out in the statutory tests established under the Terrorism Act 2000," she explained. 

The Palestine Action group has specifically focused on targeting defense and civilian companies in the United Kingdom that have ties to the State of Israel. 

The group has justified its attacks on British interests by claiming that London is an “active participant” in the ongoing war against the Iranian-backed terrorist organization Hamas in Gaza. 

However, this claim is not backed by verifiable facts. The current British government has been very critical of Israel’s self-defense operations against Hamas operatives in Gaza.

Last month, the UK announced that it would freeze trade talks with Israel due to the ongoing war in Gaza, claiming that Israel’s military operations against Hamas lead to the “prospect of starvation” in Gaza and an “intolerable” situation. 

“I want to put on record today that we’re horrified by the escalation from Israel,” the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer stated at the time. 

However, despite the diplomatic tensions between London and Jerusalem, the radical group states its goal on its website. 

"Palestine Action’s main target is Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest weapons producer.”

In November 2021, the United Kingdom led by the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson decided to designate the entire Hamas organization as a terrorist organization. 

“Today I have taken action to proscribe Hamas in its entirety. This government is committed to tackling extremism and terrorism wherever it occurs,” the then British Home Secretary Priti Patel explained at the time. 

London had previously only designated Hamas’ military wing as a terrorist organization but enabled the Jihadist organization’s political wing to operate and raise funds in the United Kingdom. 

In April 2025, Hamas and its lawyers in the UK publicly asked London to remove it from its terrorist list, claiming that it is a “liberation and resistance movement". 

Hamas’ genocidal charter openly calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of all Jews in the world. 

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it,” stated Hamas’ original charter. While Hamas propaganda has in recent years tried to tone down its extreme language, its genocidal goal against the Jewish people remains intact and was attempted during the Oct. 7 massacre when Hamas terrorist slaughtered over 1,200 Israeli men, women and children in the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Hamas leaders have consistently praised the October atrocities and threaten to carry out similar aggressions in the future.