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LONDON: British lawmakers voted on Wednesday to ban pro-Palestinian campaign group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, after its activists broke into a military base and damaged two planes in protest at what it says is Britain’s support for Israel.

Palestine Action, which describes itself as a direct action movement that uses disruptive methods, has routinely targeted companies in Britain with links to Israel, including Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems, which it has called its “main target.”

Britain’s Labour government accused the group of causing millions of pounds of damage through action at a Thales factory in 2022, an Elbit site last year and at the Royal Air Force base in southern England last month — the trigger for the decision to ban, or proscribe, the group.

Proscription would officially designate Palestine Action as a terrorist organization on a par with Daesh or Al-Qaeda under British law, making it a crime to support or belong to the groups.

Britain’s proscription order will reach parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, on Thursday. If approved by lawmakers there, Palestine Action’s ban would become effective in the following days.

The group, which has called its proscription unjustified and an “abuse of power,” has challenged the decision in court and an urgent hearing is expected on Friday.

United Nations experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council have urged Britain to reconsider its move, arguing that acts of property damage without the intention to endanger life should not be considered terrorism.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Britain’s interior minister, says that violence and criminal damage have no place in legitimate protest, and that a zero-tolerance approach was necessary for national security.

On Tuesday, the group said its activists had blocked the entrance to an Elbit site in Bristol, southwestern England, and that other members had occupied the rooftop of a subcontracting firm in Suffolk, eastern England, it said had links to Elbit.

Israel has repeatedly denied committing abuses in its war in Gaza, which began after Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

In addition to Palestine Action, the proscription order approved by Britain’s parliament includes neo-Nazi group Maniacs Murder Cult and the Russian Imperial Movement, a white supremacist group which seeks to create a new Russian imperial state.

The vote on the three groups was taken together, meaning all three had to be banned or none of them.

KYIV: Russia has made incursions near two towns key to army supply routes in eastern Ukraine, a Ukrainian military official said on Wednesday, as Moscow seeks a breakthrough in a summer offensive at a time of uncertainty over US support for Kyiv.

In recent weeks, Russia has amassed forces and despite heavy losses has advanced in rural areas either side of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, which both sit on crossroads running to the frontline from larger cities in Ukrainian-controlled territory.

Russia’s advances on the front are matched by an intensification of drone and missile strikes on Kyiv and other cities, following signs that Washington’s support for Ukraine’s war effort is faltering.

So far, the efforts by US President Donald Trump have failed to achieve a ceasefire in the full-scale invasion launched by Russia in 2022.

One of the aims of the Russian offensive is to occupy the rest of the Donetsk region. Now, they are using small assault groups, light vehicles, and drones to push toward the neighboring region, said Viktor Trehubov, a spokesperson for the Khortytsia group of forces.

“There are constant attacks with the intent of breaking through” to the border of the Dnipropetrovsk region at any cost, Trehubov said in written comments to Reuters.

Russia now has 111,000 soldiers in the Pokrovsk area, which it has been trying to seize since early last year, Ukraine’s top armed forces commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said last week, describing dozens of battles in the area every day.

A decision by Washington to halt some deliveries of various weapons including precision rocket artillery to Kyiv will worsen the situation on the ground for Ukraine’s forces, said Jack Watling, a senior researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank.

“The loss of these supplies will significantly degrade Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian forces beyond 30 km (19 miles) from the front line and therefore allow Russia to improve its logistics,” Watling said.

RUSSIAN GAINS
Ukrainian blog DeepState, which uses open-source data to map the frontline, said the Russian military in June had seized 556 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory, which it said was the largest monthly loss of ground since November.

Russian forces, which have numerical superiority, cut the main road linking Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka in May, complicating Ukrainian movements and resupply efforts.

“The Russian advance is being contained, but their crossing of the Pokrovsk-Kostyantynivka highway is a strategic and logistical setback,” Trehubov said.

Heavy Russian losses have prevented Russian advances toward Kostiantynivka via Chasiv Yar, or along the western Pokrovsk front. “Now they are attempting (to advance) further away from populated areas,” Trehubov said.

DeepState also reported that Russian advances in June near Pokrovsk and nearby Novopavlivka accounted for more than half of all Russian gains along the entire frontline in all of Ukraine.

Trehubov said Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka remain Ukrainian logistical hubs, despite setbacks and drone activity which make some defensive fortifications less effective.

“(Drones) hinder logistics for both sides but don’t make it impossible. Drones after all are not invulnerable,” he said.