The cofounder of Palestine Action is set to begin a legal challenge against the group’s controversial proscription as a “terrorist” group.

Huda Ammori will bring the case before London’s High Court on Wednesday, after the Court of Appeal last month found reasonable grounds to argue that the proscription order interferes with the rights to freedom of speech and protest.

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A judicial review is expected to begin on Wednesday. The next hearings are scheduled for Thursday and December 2.

If Ammori succeeds, the ban could potentially be lifted, bringing an end to a months-long campaign of civil disobedience that has resulted in hundreds of arrests.

More than 2,000 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act for showing support for the organisation since it was outlawed in July, mostly for holding signs reading: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”

Being a member of or showing support for the direct action group is currently a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

The government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer banned the group after two of its members broke into the RAF Brize Norton military base in Oxfordshire in June and sprayed red paint on Voyager planes that activists said were used in Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.

In a separate incident in August 2024, members of the group broke into the premises of the Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems in Filton, Bristol, and reportedly destroyed quadcopter drones, which the group says are used by the Israeli military in Gaza to target Palestinians. A total of 24 activists linked to the group remain under arrest.

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Ammori told Al Jazeera that the ban against Palestine Action is “absurd and authoritarian”.

“Proscribing Palestine Action wasn’t done to protect the public, it was done to crush dissent and defend the Israeli weapons industry,” she said.

“This is an opportunity for the courts to right the wrongs that the government has done, and reinstate a bit of sanity. If we are not successful, we will continue to fight the ban, and I am sure that ultimately, we will win.”

Political battle

Defend Our Juries, a campaign group coordinating protests across the United Kingdom during which sign-wielding demonstrators are routinely arrested, argued the ban is “political”.

“The reason there are protest groups is because our government isn’t listening to what the continuous protests are about,” Lex Korte, the group’s legal coordinator and cofounder, told Al Jazeera.

In recent months, thousands of protesters at mass rallies, experts of international law and human rights groups have called on the UK to end its alleged complicity in Israel’s onslaught in Gaza. The UK provides vital components of F-35 jets and operates Shadow R1 surveillance flights over the Gaza Strip.

The ban on Palestine Action marked the first time in British history that a direct action group has been branded as a terrorist organisation. It is also the first time that a proscribed group has been granted a judicial review.

Korte said the term “terrorism” has always had a strong political connotation.

“The UK definition of terrorism, particularly in the Terrorism Act 2000, has been criticised as being way too vague and [of including] acts that aren’t acts of terrorism, namely the inclusion of criminal damage that doesn’t require any acts of violence towards humans,” he said.

“Inviting arrest with your behaviour and with that kind of method, we’re highlighting the unjust nature of the proscription of Palestine Action,” Korte said.

Direct action challenges UK complicity in Gaza

London-based human rights advocacy organisation Cage International highlighted the “draconian use of terrorism legislation to shut down direct action” in a report issued on Tuesday.

“Direct action has been neither random nor gratuitous. It has been focused on the specific nodes that make war possible: manufacturers, insurers, logistics providers, financiers, universities, lobbyists, and government infrastructure,” it said.

“When ordinary channels fail to restrain state-sanctioned harm, principled disruption becomes not only legitimate but necessary.”

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The report argues that the UK continues to support the war in Gaza with military, trade and diplomatic ties, despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) having concluded in July 2024 that Israel’s prolonged presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, constitutes a breach of international law.

The ICJ also found it plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide and issued six provisional measures to mitigate the risk of such acts.

Cage found Palestine Action has spurred a wave of civil disobedience between 2020 and 2025, leading to a “significant shift in the landscape of activism in the UK”. This resulted in the shutdown of operations at sites connected to the production or facilitation of weapons used by Israeli forces, such as  Elbit’s site in Bristol that was the subject of dozens of protests by Palestine Action, including days before the group was proscribed.

“Over the last two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the UK has steadily expanded its authoritarian counter-terrorism powers to suppress dissent and insulate itself from public accountability,”  Anas Mustapha, Cage’s Head of Public Advocacy, told Al Jazeera.

“But the proscription of Palestine Action went beyond the bounds of what the public would tolerate. It backfired precisely because the greater community consciousness has shifted. People could see with their own eyes what is happening in Gaza, and they recognise those acting to stop British participation in such acts.”

Korte, of Defend Our Juries, said judges at London’s High Court would have to understand “the gravitas that [their] decision has, both to everyday people and their lives and to the international community and the people of Palestine”.

Israel has pummelled Gaza since October 2023, killing at least 69,733 Palestinians and wounding 170,863. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel and about 200 were taken captive.

Since a ceasefire came into effect last month, two years after the war began, Israel has killed more than 300 people in Gaza and violated the terms of the truce hundreds of times.