Published by CAGE International, 28 November 2025. Full report can be found here.
On 28 November 2025 CAGE International, a Britain-based NGO formed in the wake of the post 9/11 so-called ‘war on terror’ and active in the Palestine movement, released a comprehensive report on the effectiveness of Palestine Action’s direct action campaign in Britain. Titled Putting bodies on the line: the landscape of direct action and civil disobedience for Palestine in the UK, the report details the various actions taken by Palestine Action and other groups or individuals relating to Palestine from 2020 to 2025. It goes over government, judicial and corporate responses to actions, drawing one major conclusion: direct action works. In the midst of increasing repression of the Palestine movement, and a hunger strike led by Palestine Action political prisoners which has attracted international attention, the report reiterates clearly the need to support all tactics which contribute to the international isolation of Israel and the destruction of Zionism. However, the report does not assess the necessity of a broad movement alongside direct action to pose a serious political challenge to British imperialist collusion with Zionism.
Palestine Action was created in 2020 out of frustration with the limited goals, tame demonstrations and ‘respectable’ tactics of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) with the express intention of striking at the heart of Israel’s corporate enablers. The group’s activities, before proscription, consisted primarily of disrupting, causing damage to, or putting out of order private institutions which support the Israeli state and Zionism. Its primary target has been Elbit Systems UK, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer and the IDF’s biggest weapons supplier.
Palestine Action’s launch and the Elbit Eight
Palestine Action launched in July 2020 with the group occupying and smearing red paint over the headquarters of Elbit Systems UK. Repeated actions took place during the rest of the summer of 2020, each time shutting down Elbit System’s London HQ. These actions served as the basis for the indictment of the Elbit Eight, whose trial began in November 2023.
Among the eight defendants were the co-founders of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard. Together the eight of them had 35 charges, including blackmail, burglary and conspiracy to commit criminal damage, some facing up to 14 years of prison time. They refused a plea deal which would’ve had six of them acquitted in exchange for Ammori and Barnard pleading guilty. In the end, the Elbit Eight were acquitted of 12 charges in December 2023. Six of them will face re-trial in 2027 for the remaining 23 charges, most of which relate to criminal damage.
Their acquittal was a massive victory for the Palestine movement. As put by the defendants themselves, it clearly showed that it is Elbit who is guilty, not them. In all, there have been 19 acquittals by juries in Elbit-related trials. As the report notes, these acquittals were secured by relying on the right of juries to deliberate using their conscience and by arguing the urgent necessity of taking disruptive action for the sake of preventing greater harm. The government’s current attempt to shrink the right to jury trials will invariably have an effect on direct actionists who will no longer be able to rely on sympathetic justice. Defendants will likely receive more guilty verdicts and harsher punishments, as part of the state’s crackdown on the right to protest.
Palestine Action under attack
Direct actionists have been at the forefront of the fight against British complicity in genocide, and have also faced the brunt of state repression. The Filton 24 exemplify this: while only six of them are alleged to have broken into Elbit’s Filton factory in August 2024, a total of 24 people have been arrested and remanded to prison at different times since then. The action at the Filton factory uncovered masses of weapons, including quadcopter drones used to murder Palestinians in Gaza, despite the site having been marketed as being used for research and development.
The Terrorism Act 2000 was used to initially detain the activists without charge, and later to deny them bail and remand them to prison, where they remain to this day. The TA 2000 was used again to proscribe Palestine Action in July 2025, with the Labour government pointing towards the group’s action on RAF Brize Norton as the reason. This stepping up of repression triggered an even larger response on behalf of the movement. Thousands of people have intentionally defied the ban on Palestine Action. The banning of the group has had the effect of further politicising the movement. Already, new groups are taking up the mantle of Palestine Action.
The use of the Terrorism Act is designed to make resistance to imperialism illegal, including Palestine Action’s direct action tactics. The British state will use every tool at its disposal, legitimate or not, to crush dissent and undo the successes of direct actionists. The case of the Filton 24 has exposed the mockery of due process in Britain. Freedom of Information requests have revealed the extensive interference of the Israeli Embassy and corporate actors like Elbit Systems in legal processes involving supporters of Palestine Action. Whether the state plays dirty or fair, there will be no victory in the courts without struggle in the streets. Any real challenge to the proscription of Palestine Action must be part of a broader campaign against the Terrorism Act, as organisations like CAGE and the RCG have reiterated, but which the report does not say as such.
The impact of direct action
What the British state feared was not just the costs of attacks on property, but the need to clamp down on a radicalised section of the movement that could not be contained through the official channels of the PSC. The Palestinian struggle has had a clear galvanising effect, carrying the potential to ignite a mass movement here which British imperialism would not survive. The British State also of course acts to defend Zionist economic interests, which are tied up with its own. The protection of private property and private interests is a greater concern for the state than the lives of the Palestinian people, let alone their right to resist oppression, or the responsibility of people in Britain to prevent genocide.
The success of Palestine Action’s tactics is well documented. Among tangible effects are the closure of Elbit’s Odham factory, significant production delays at Teledyne and Filton sites, the withdrawal of services by multiple logistics and supply-chain companies, and the withdrawal of coverage for Elbit by insurers such as Allianz and Aviva. Since Palestine Action’s launch, companies tied to Israel’s weapons industry have suffered financial losses in the millions of pounds due to the group’s activities. The Filton action alone caused an estimated £1m worth of damages. Slowly but surely, it is becoming more costly to maintain ties with Israel than it is to break them. We must continue making ‘business as usual’ untenable.
Direct actionists have been made to suffer ‘the consequences of their actions’ by the state. The current hunger strike has shown that this Labour government is prepared to murder protestors in Britain before cutting ties with genocidal Israel. What is crucial is that the campaign around them and their demands builds into a wider movement challenging British imperialism’s ties with Israel and demanding total and comprehensive sanctions against the Zionist state. Direct action is a crucial part of such a campaign, but not ultimately enough to build a political challenge on the scale that is needed. We must defend these political prisoners and all those facing criminal charges for their solidarity with Palestine in order to defend this movement against harsher and harsher repression. They are inside for us, and we are outside for them.
