A British judge on Friday sentenced four anti-Israel Palestine Action activists to lengthy prison terms totaling over 20 years for a 2024 raid on an Elbit Systems UK factory that caused about £1 million (about $1.3 million) in damage and left a police officer with a fractured spine, a case he said had “terrorist connections.”
Samuel Corner, 23, received eight years and eight months in prison for grievous bodily harm and criminal damage, with parole eligibility after seven years and eight months, after striking a policewoman with a sledgehammer during the Aug. 6, 2024, break-in at the Bristol-area site, the court heard.
Co-defendants Charlotte Head, 30, and Leona Kamio, 30, were each jailed for six years minus 45 days for criminal damage, and will be eligible for parole after four years and 320 days, while Fatema Rajwani, 21, was sentenced to five years and eight months minus 45 days, with parole possible after four years and 200 days, the judge said.
Head was also banned from driving for a year for using a repurposed prison van as a battering ram to force entry into the facility, where the group destroyed drones, computers and other equipment in protest over Israel’s war in Gaza, according to evidence. Jerusalem was fighting Hamas terrorists in the territory after the U.S.-designated terrorist organization led a killing and kidnapping spree targeting mostly civilians across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Justice Jeremy Johnson told the defendants—whom he described as previously of good character—that they had been “appalled” by events in Gaza but chose to take the law into their own hands rather than engage in lawful protest, and he ruled the offenses met the threshold for a “terrorist connection,” an aggravating factor, even though Palestine Action was not a designated terrorist organization at the time.
The British government in July 2025 outlawed Palestine Action, which was established in 2020, and declared it to be a terrorist organization following a series of similar break-ins and what the group called “occupations” of firms with Israeli ties. The United Kingdom’s High Court of Justice ruled against the government’s ban and proscription on Feb. 13, 2026.
Outside Woolwich Crown Court, police said about 500 people gathered to support the anti-Israel activists and that 107 were arrested.
