THE Home Office tried to use anti-terror laws to stop Palestine Action’s protests against Israeli’s biggest weapons manufacturer, it has emerged.

Documents uncovered by Private Eye magazine confirm the department’s use of anti-terrorist officials in efforts to prevent the direct-action group from targeting Elbit Systems’ drone factories in Britain.

In 2022, then home secretary Priti Patel reassured Elbit Systems UK chief executive Martin Fausset that “the criminal protest acts” were taken seriously by the government.

Documents from the meeting say that Palestine Action “does not meet the threshold for proscription as they do not commit” or “encourage … acts of terrorism.”

After the current Labour government took power, a woman was held incommunicado for five days under the Terrorism Act because her daughter was involved in Palestine Action. She was released without charge last August.

According to Palestine Action, 10 people were held without charge for a week under the Terrorism Act after an Elbit-owned site in Filton, Bristol, was broken into that month.