Hundreds arrested in UK for supporting banned pro-Palestine group

UK police arrested 522 people in London on 9 August for breaching anti‑terror laws by supporting the recently proscribed group Palestine Action. It is thought to be the highest ever recorded number of arrests at a single protest in the UK capital. The average age of those arrested was 54, including 97 people in their seventies and 15 octogenarians. The government outlawed Palestine Action on 5 July, days after it took responsibility for a break‑in at an air force base in southern England that caused an estimated £7 million of damage to two aircraft. The group said its activists were responding to Britain’s indirect military support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.