Palestine Action: Operations and Global Network

Palestine Action, a UK-designated terrorist organization founded in July 2020 by Huda Ammori and Richard Loxton-Barnard, has shifted to a global militant strategy following its July 2025 terrorism designation. The group now encourages domestic violent extremists worldwide to conduct physical attacks against defense contractors, banks, insurance companies, and shipping firms linked to Israel. Their TTPs include facility vandalism with red paint, obstructing entrances with human chains, and sabotaging assets inside secure perimeters. Since October 2023, escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict has intensified these physical threats, with operations causing several million dollars in damages. Organizations in Western Europe, North America, and Australia face elevated physical security risks from the group's decentralized global network. Organizations should enhance perimeter security and monitor for reconnaissance activities.

Explores Palestine Action’s post-designation global network, tactics, and targets, and evaluates key physical risks and mitigations for organizations.

Palestine Action, a UK-designated terrorist organization founded in July 2020 by Huda Ammori and Richard Loxton-Barnard, has shifted to a global militant strategy following its July 2025 terrorism designation. The group now encourages domestic violent extremists worldwide to conduct physical attacks against defense contractors, banks, insurance companies, and shipping firms linked to Israel. Their TTPs include facility vandalism with red paint, obstructing entrances with human chains, and sabotaging assets inside secure perimeters. Since October 2023, escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict has intensified these physical threats, with operations causing several million dollars in damages. Organizations in Western Europe, North America, and Australia face elevated physical security risks from the group's decentralized global network. Organizations should enhance perimeter security and monitor for reconnaissance activities. Explores Palestine Action’s post-designation global network, tactics, and targets, and evaluates key physical risks and mitigations for organizations. Executive Summary Palestine Action has almost certainly responded to its July 2025 designation as a terrorist organization in the United Kingdom (UK) by encouraging domestic violent extremists (DVEs) outside the UK with a nexus to the group to increase the scope and frequency of their operations, while abstaining from conducting or claiming attacks within the UK. Palestine Action’s dual-track strategy, very likely intended to maintain pressure on the multinational companies they target while avoiding complications to their legal efforts to contest the UK designation in court, almost certainly poses persistent physical threats to private and public sector facilities in Western Europe, North America, and Australia. Recent arrests of pro-Palestine Action protesters in the UK and events in the Israel-Hamas conflict have very likely prompted Palestine Action’s global network to more frequently conduct militant direct actions on behalf of Palestine Action’s interests. Palestine Action’s global network consists of pro-Palestinian activist groups that share the UK branch’s commitment to militant direct action and other core aspects of the group’s operational profile — such as motivating ideologies, preferred targets, area(s) of operation, or tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). The most popular TTPs within the network are almost certainly those that Palestine Action’s UK branch has promoted or employed, including vandalizing the exterior of facilities with red paint or blunt instruments, obstructing facilities with “human chains” or large objects, and sabotaging valuable assets inside the perimeter of a facility. Defense contractors that provide services to Israel’s government or military are almost certainly the primary target of the Palestine Action global network, although the network has also frequently targeted insurance agencies, banks and financial entities, and shipping companies. Key Findings Palestine Action’s July 2025 terrorism designation in the UK very likely broadened the geographic scope of its operations and potential targets, as activist groups in its global network outside the UK almost certainly have greater freedom of maneuver. Since October 7, 2023, events in the Israel-Hamas conflict, especially expansions of Israeli military activity or reports of humanitarian crises in the Gaza Strip, have prefigured physical attacks with a nexus to Palestine Action. The facilities of Western European, North American, and Australian defense contractors, banks, insurance companies, international shipping and logistics service providers, and government agencies — particularly those with a perceived relationship to Israel — very likely face elevated physical risks from Palestine Action’s global network. The most costly Palestine Action operations — some of which have caused several million dollars in damages to targeted organizations — very likely resulted from Palestine Action operatives breaching facilities’ secure perimeters. In the short to medium term, Palestine Action militant direct action in the UK is very likely to maintain a lower operational tempo until the group either succeeds in its effort to rescind its terrorism designation or exhausts all legal avenues to do so. Palestine Action: History and Terrorism Designation Palestine Action was founded in the UK in July 2020 by Huda Ammori and Richard Loxton-Barnard, longtime UK-based activists in the pro-Palestinian and environmental movements, respectively. The almost certain core purpose of Palestine Action is to promote militant direct action by pro-Palestinian activists around the world, particularly those who aim to disrupt the operations of government agencies, defense contractors, and private companies that supply Israel or the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Historically, the group’s UK core has focused its efforts on targeting the Israeli multinational defense contractor...