Above photo: Guy Smallman / Getty.
Activists disrupting the production of Elbit drones used by Israel to kill civilians in Gaza are being prosecuted under UK counterterror laws.
UK prosecutors are colluding with Israeli embassy officials to classify protesters resisting Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza as terrorists and to imprison them on heavily politicized grounds, an investigation by The Grayzone journalist Kit Klarenberg showed.
“Documents released by the British government reveal that London has been coordinating with Israeli officials to prosecute protestors associated with activist group Palestine Action for disrupting the operations of Elbit Systems, which manufactures deadly weapons being used in the genocide in Gaza,” Klarenberg wrote.
The documents suggest that Israel has successfully lobbied the UK to abandon well-established legal standards in order to charge activists resisting Israel’s genocide under harsh counter-terror laws.
A file released by the British government showed that Nicola Smith, the Head of International Law at Britain’s Attorney General’s Office, shared “contact details” for UK prosecutors and counter-terror investigators with Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to London, Daniela Grudsky Ekstein, in August 2024.
This allowed the Israeli deputy ambassador to promote the prosecution of 10 activists affiliated with Palestine Action, known as the “Filton 10,” who were imprisoned after raiding an Elbit factory in Filton, South West England.
The activists destroyed Israeli quadcopters produced at the factory that are routinely used to maim and murder Palestinian civilians, including children, in the besieged Gaza Strip.
They are currently being detained under “counterterror” powers despite facing charges such as criminal damage that have no relation to terrorism.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has indicated it will argue that their offenses had a “terrorist connection” in order to maximize their sentences.
In another indication of collusion between UK prosecutors and Israeli officials, Smith, the international law advisor to the UK AGO, and Ekstein, the deputy Israeli ambassador, held a meeting in July 2024 alongside Israeli Embassy Counsellor of Political Affairs Yosef Zilberman and UK AGO Director Douglas Wilson.
Three months after AGO officials provided the Israeli embassy with contact details of the officers investigating the activists behind the raid of the Filton facility, 10 more Palestine Action demonstrators involved in the action were arrested. Eight were charged and imprisoned under the same counterterror powers as the previous 10.
The imprisoned activists are now known as the “Filton 18.”
“There is clear evidence showing continuous political and foreign interference in Palestine Action cases,” Palestine Action cofounder Huda Amori told The Grayzone, adding that “the ongoing prosecutions of journalists and activists who dare stand up for Palestine is politically motivated, and done under the influence of the Israeli embassy.”
The mother of one of the imprisoned Filton 18 activists told The Grayzone that revelations of AGO officials collaborating with Israeli officials to prosecute her 21-year-old daughter Zoe made her “feel physically sick.”
Zoe has now been in prison for eight months and will remain behind bars until at least November, when her trial finally begins.
“Zoe took direct action against Elbit Systems because she could not bear to see her country being complicit in a genocide,” her mother said.
“She saw the UK committing war crimes by arming Israel, so she took action to uphold international law. Now we know it’s that same unholy alliance between Israel and the UK that conspired to use UK counterterror powers against Zoe and the Filton 18.”
