Palestine Action

Activities

• According to its website, “Palestine Action is a direct action group committed to dismantling the apartheid regime in Israel through targeted campaigns against companies that profit from the occupation and genocide of the Palestinian people. Using disruptive tactics, Palestine Action challenges the corporate enablers of the Israeli state’s military-industrial complex and seeks to make it impossible for these companies to profit from the oppression of Palestinians.”
• Palestine Action offers workshops and training seminars to “grow our direct action movement.” These efforts “bring together like minded people for a day of talks, trainings and group discussions. All of which is geared towards harnessing the strength of the grassroots and directing it towards bringing down Israel’s war machine.”
• A May 2024 document by the UK Government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption Lord Walney claimed, “Palestine Action – is a Far Left, anarchist, anti-Israel activist group founded in 2020 that engages in law breaking and business disruption in order to ‘take direct action against Israel’s arms trade in Britain’ and, more broadly, to ‘end Israeli apartheid’…There can be no doubt that Palestine Action is using illegal methods to attempt to close subsidiaries of a registered company operating lawfully in this country.”
• In August 2024, Unity of Fields, the American branch of Palestine Action, was removed from social media platforms due to a post saying that it was necessary “to open a new front against the US empire.” (See below for more information on Unity of Fields.)
• Palestine Action claims to “target[] weapons companies” and “companies and institutions linked to them.” Palestine Action’s “main target is Elbit Systems.”
  • According to Palestine Action, “Through sustained direct action, Palestine Action has forced Elbit to shut down weapons factories, lose lucrative contracts and partnerships with several other firms.”

Public Actions

• To aid in destructive demonstrations, Palestine Action published an “Underground Manual” encouraging people to break the law and take illegal action in their activities against companies. The manual included a section on “how to get to the site and leave undetected” and instructions on how to “remain undetected” and “not leave a paper trail.” The manual encouraged buying burner phones and destroying evidence,  and included various tactics such as smashing windows and equipment, spray painting, breaking in, and “think big” and “be creative.”
  • The manual also stated, “Once you’ve got your cell together, come up with a name. This can be named after a Palestinian freedom fighter, a play on taking action against the war machine.”
• Palestine Action holds “Direct Action Training Days,” which offer to “equip you with the knowledge to join the resistance.” 
• Palestine Action is holding a series of “Crash Courses on Direct Action” that “cover [Palestine Action’s] theory on direct action, British complicity and the legal process associated with taking action.” It is intended for people in Britain and Ireland, but there is also a separate course for those interested outside of the UK. Palestine Action claims it has “networks” in Britain, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Norway, France and Austria, as well as more “forming across the world.”
• In March 2025, Palestine Action activists painted, “GAZA IS NOT FOR SALE” across the Trump Turnberry golf course. Activists also “painted the club house and dug up the greens including the course’s most prestigious holes.”
• In February 2025, Palestine Action activists targeted BBC’s headquarters in London, covering the building in red paint and breaking windows in “protest against the BBC’s ongoing complicity in the genocide of Palestinians through its entrenched pro-Israel bias.”
• In January 2025, in a coordinated wave of actions across Europe, Palestine Action attacked 15 premises of the Allianz company, an investor in and insurer of Elbit Systems.
• In January 2025, Palestine Action activists crashed a van into the front of Teledyne Defence and Space in Shipley.
• In December 2024, Palestine Action activists tried to “break[] through the walls of Elbit’s UAV Engines’ (UEL) Shenstone drone factory…[a] dedicated team of activists are using demolition tools to target the factory walls. The drivers have secured themselves inside the two vehicles, using lock-ons to remain in position, allowing more time to put the Israeli weapons maker out of commission.”
• On November 2, 2024, Palestine Action members broke a glass display case at the University of Manchester and stole two busts of former Israeli President Chaim Weizmann. Palestine Action commented, claiming to have “abducted” the sculptures to mark the anniversary of the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
• On March 8, 2024, a Palestine Action member spray painted, and then slashed the portrait of Lord Arthur James Balfour hanging at Trinity College of the University of Cambridge.
• In October 2023, Palestine Action activists “scaled the Leonardo UK weapons factory in Southampton and occupied the rooftop, shutting down production at the site. Activists are now in prime position and have begun dismantling the building.”
• On April 14, 2022, Palestine Action members chained themselves to the gates of UAV Tactical Systems Ltd in Leicester, aiming to shut down the Israeli-owned factory. The demonstration, which included pouring red paint and waving placards, led to a police response with multiple arrests. The protest ended within hours, with the group claiming they temporarily halted the factory’s production.
• On May 19, 2021, four members of Palestine Action climbed onto the roof of an Elbit Systems-owned drone factory located in Leicester, United Kingdom, where they remained, disrupting production, and negotiated with police for six days. This activity resulted in a total of ten arrests for conspiracy to commit criminal damage and aggravated trespass. The defendants were later acquitted.

Arrests

• According to Palestine Action, “It is pivotal to understand that Palestine Action do not seek or glorify arrests as the means to create change…However, we do embody the principle of sacrifice as often arrests are a consequence of causing sustained disruption. Levels of sacrifice will differ from person to person, whether you’re sacrificing your comfort, a night in a police station, putting yourself through the court process or even prison, it is all a part of the same struggle. “
• In November 2024, UK counter-terrorism police raided the homes of ten Palestine Action activists who participated in a protest at Elbit’s factory. In January 2025, the activists entered ‘not guilty’ pleas on all charges.
• In August 2024, two Palestine Action activists were imprisoned for 12-months for “taking action to disrupt the operations of Thales in Govan, Glasgow…[they] sought to disrupt the French arms giant’s operations, targeting the factory due to Thales’ considerable links with Israel’s largest arms firm, Elbit Systems, along with its direct supplies to the Israeli military during an ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
• In August 2024, Palestine Action co-founder Richard Barnard was arrested by UK police on three charges, including one related to terrorism. Barnard was accused of “one count of inviting support for a proscribed organisation, namely Hamas, under section 12(1A) of the Terrorism Act and two counts of encouraging ‘criminal damage’ against Israeli weapons factories under s44 of the Serious Crime Act.” His trial is expected in April 2025.
• In June 2024, four activists from Palestine Action were arrested after they occupied GRiD Defence Systems, military computer and processor supplier for Israel’s war machine. After breaking into the company premises, “activists barricaded themselves inside, destroyed military hardware and unfurled banners.”
• In June 2024, seven activists were arrested after they “attached themselves to two vehicles and blockaded the only road into the British headquarters of Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems.”
• In May 2024, seven Palestine Action activists who broke into a Bristol HQ of Elbit Systems in 2022 were given suspended prison sentences and ordered to pay more than £5,000 in compensation. The protesters smashed windows, barricaded themselves inside. They then caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to equipment and spray-painted messages such as “Free Palestine” and “Shut Elbit Down” on the walls and windows.

Unity of Fields

• Unity of Fields, formerly Palestine Action U.S., was formally launched in October 2023, shortly after the Hamas-led October 7th attacks.
• In August 2024, the group changed its name to Unity of Fields, claiming that it was necessary “to open a new front against the US empire” and “to build the international popular cradle of resistance” and was transitioning into a “militant propaganda” organization “devoted to opening a new front of insurgency in the United States.” 
• According to the group, the name “Unity of Fields” is a reference to the efforts of various Palestinian terrorist groups and organizations to coordinate attacks. According to Unity of Fields, the name comes from the Palestinian “resistance” and “refers to the coordination between all the factions on the battlefield.”
• In February 2025, Unity of Fields retweeted a clipping from a 1988 newspaper story about a bomb planted in a park in Northern Ireland where an Israeli bowling team was scheduled to play. The clip was accompanied by the UoF caption: “Expand your horizons of what ‘Palestine solidarity’ looks like. Solidarity is material action.”
• In December 2024, Unity of Fields engaged in the denial of rapes and sexual assaults that took place during the October 7th atrocities, tweeting, “The 10/7 rape atrocity propaganda, ‘Saddam’s rape rooms’, ‘Gaddafi supplies troops with endless viagra to encourage mass rape’, the lynching of Black men in the U.S. for their alleged ‘sexual predation’ of white women. This is part and parcel of the colonial playbook.”
• In October 2024, on the anniversary of October 7th massacre, Unity of Fields released a statement celebrating “the Al-Aqsa Flood” — Hamas’s official name for the attacks— and claimed that “If victory over the US Empire and its zionist proxy is possible, it will be because struggles against them have erupted all over the world — Bring the war home! Two, three, many Al-Aqsa Floods!” The statement was accompanied by a photo of terrorists celebrating atop an Israeli tank.
• In May 2024, Unity of Fields (as Palestine Action US) created a guide titled “FLOOD THE GATES: ESCALATE.” In the guide, Palestine Action US claimed that it was “insincere to glorify the Palestinian resistance if, at the same time, we do not raise our own resistance here….We are not naïve enough to think the revolution will come through “peaceful” means… without organized militancy.”

Staff

• Richard Barnard, co-founder of Palestine Action
  • On April 14, 2025, Barnard is expected to stand trial for “one count of inviting support for a proscribed organisation, namely Hamas, under section 12(1A) of the Terrorism Act and two counts of encouraging ‘criminal damage’ against Israeli weapons factories under s44 of the Serious Crime Act.”
  • In a June 2024 interview, Barnard alleged that he had broken into American Air Force bases in Germany nine times.
  • In October 2023, in the aftermath of the brutal Hamas attack on October 7, Barnard said that “When we hear the resistance, the Al-Aqsa flood [Hamas’ name for the October 7 attacks], we must turn that flood into a tsunami of the whole world.”
  • In October 2023, Barnard encouraged a crowd to break British law by attacking Elbit’s and its subsidiaries’ factories. 
  • On March 15, 2023, Barnard retweeted a post by Samidoun, (Samidoun, linked to the PFLP, was designated by the US and Canada in October 2024 as a terrorist organization) calling to “free Khader Adnan.” Adnan was a senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist organization.
  • On January 24, 2023, Barnard reposted a Samidoun post calling to free Ahmad and Adal Musa.
    • Ahmad and Adal Musa are Hamas-affiliated terrorists responsible for the November 21, 2012 bus bombing in Tel Aviv that injured twenty eight civilians.
• Huda Ammori, co-founder  of Palestine Action.
  • In 2018-2020, Ammori was a Campaigns Officer for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), a leader and chief proponent of BDS and anti-Israel campaigns in the UK, which frequently invoke the “apartheid” libel.
  • In 2016, Ammori founded the BDS Campaign of the University of Manchester, where, as of March 2025, she is still a Chair.
  • On October 7, 2023, Ammouri tweeted, “Zionists spend 75 years stealing Palestinian land but fails [sic] to take away the Palestinian determination for liberation. Palestine will be free!”
  • On October 7, 2023, Ammouri tweeted, “If armed thugs stormed your home, forced you and your family to live in the garage, routinely beat you and starved you. Would you fight back? #FreePalestine.”