The US Treasury Department designated Palestine Action a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on Wednesday, according to a statement posted on the department's website. The move places the group under a formal US sanctions regime.
Britain had already taken similar action, having banned Palestine Action as a terrorist organization prior to this US designation. Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense firm, has repeatedly found itself in the crosshairs of Palestine Action's campaign, which has increasingly zeroed in on Israel-linked defense companies operating in Britain.
Since Hamas' deadly October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel, Palestine Action has waged a sustained campaign of vandalism and property damage targeting British companies and buildings it accuses of ties to "Zionism." In August 2024, more than a dozen activists used a prison van to ram-raid the Horizon facility near Bristol belonging to Elbit Systems, attacking officers with sledgehammers, according to the police, marking this as one of the group's most violent actions.
NEW: Police release footage to trial of the Palestine Action members. It shows the attack on PC Kate Evans with a sledgehammer. This is distressing. She still isn't back to normal duties. Yet mainstream journalists and celebs call Palestine Action non-violent. A nasty joke. pic.twitter.com/pMuoOeGLby
— Heidi Bachram (@HeidiBachram) November 24, 2025
Months later, in November, protesters marked the 107th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration by stealing two busts of Israel's first president from Manchester University and spraying red paint across campus buildings, a research center, and a Jewish charity's office. A legal challenge to the UK ban remains unresolved: the UK Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal contesting a lower court's finding that Britain's proscription of Palestine Action was lawful.
OFAC also sanctioned Autistici Inventati, an Italy-based entity accused of providing specialized digital infrastructure, tools, and services to Antifa cells and other violent far-left extremists, including a foreign terrorist organization, as well as the transnational group Masar Badil – a front, according to the Treasury's statement, for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
"Far-left extremists, their fronts, and their enablers should be on notice: We will bring the full weight of our economic tools to bear," Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said. "Political terrorism has no place in our society, and we will continue to cut the financial lifelines of these groups until they are eliminated."
