Details of the 12 British nationals amongst internationals arrested & detained in Israel

Audrey Gray, 77 years old, from West Chitington – retired nurse, social worker, former Ecumenical Accompanier and current Methodist local preacher
Pippa Bartolotti, 57 years old, Deputy Leader of the Wales Green Party – Pippa was arrested on Friday 8 July after being allowed through passport control and then speaking to press about friends being detained by Israeli authorities
Mick Napier, 64, university teacher and chair of Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, lives in Edinburgh
Ian Stewart-Hargreaves, lives on Isle of Lewis
Frank Thomas, 66, lives in Edinburgh, retired statistician
Les Levidow, 61, member of Jews Against Zionism and the British Committee for Universities of Palestine (BRICUP)
Anne Gray, 66, retired academic from London, Green Party activist
Dee Murphy, 56, (Irish) lives in Swansea, founder member of Swansea Palestine Community Link
John Lynes, 83, retired university lecturer, Quaker and a member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, Christian CND, World Development Movement and University and College Union
Val Kitchen, 68, from Tonbridge
Joy Cherkaoui, community worker from Dumfries and Galloway
Fiona Williams
Joyce Giblin, from Wales

Statements from some of the UK citizens who had planned to visit Bethlehem (photos available on online version):

Les Levidow has been opposing the Israeli Occupation through various campaign groups since the 1980s.  These include: the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP), Jews for Boycotting Israel Goods (J-BIG) and Jews Against Zionism (JAZ).  During the first intifada he was a member of the joint Jewish-Palestinian editorial group of the magazine Return, which opposed the Israeli Law of Return and supported the Palestinian right of return.  He is author of relevant articles such as ‘Zionist Anti-Semitism’ (1991) and ‘The Zionist Origins of the War on Terror’ (2006).  He is joining the Palestine Justice Network delegation in order to learn from civil society networks about ways to oppose the Occupation and build a free Palestine.

John Lynes, retired university lecturer in architecture.

“Between 2002 and 2009 I worked with the Christian Peacemaker Team (www.cpt.org) in the West Bank and inNorthern Iraq, but had to retire due to failing health (I'm 83).  I am a Quaker and a member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, Christian CND, World Development Movement, and a Life Member of the University and College Union.”

John Said, “I am taking  part because I want us all - including Palestinians and Israelis - to live free from fear, from violence and from oppression.  I know I may suffer imprisonment, and am ready to accept the consequences of my decisions in the hope that children in the Middle East may be enabled to grow up in greater safety.”

Anne Gray, Retired academic (sociologist/economist) from London. Active in Green Party and was a Green Party Parliamentary candidate in 2010. She said she wanted “to find out Palestinians’ ideas and proposals about a path towards a just peace and how British people can help them achieve that.

Audrey Gray is a 77 year-old from West Chiltington, a retired nurse, social worker, former Ecumenical Accompanier and current Methodist Local Preacher. She went “to stand alongside Palestinians and Israelis whose lives are severely restricted by the 43 year Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

Audrey said “I was determined to go again, I want to make a difference in some small way.  In the past 20years I have made 7 pilgrimages to the region and lived on the West Bank for 4 ½ months in 2008 and seen for myself the difficulties, conditions and constraints under which people live.”  Prime Minister Netanhayu declares Israel as a democracy, I am being undemocratically held against my will.

The situation has become more desperate, as further restrictions of movement have been imposed.  Along with others I have been invited to stay in Bethlehem at Aida refugee camp.  This challenged Israel’s belief that we do not have the right to visit friends, just because they live on the West Bank, my British passport says ““The Secretary of State…requests and requires all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.”  Being held against our will is unacceptable and I am calling on the British Consulate to protect and help us gain access, the British press to make our plight known and my MP Nick Herbert to bring the matter to Parliament, as a matter of urgency.

Joy Cherkaoui has a community work background and now works for Dumfries and Galloway Council in Integrated Children’s Services.  She has long been involved in social justice issues and has a strong interest in community engagement and participatory methodologies.  Growing up in the 1970s she was active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement, women’s rights and CND.  Later she became involved in Welfare Rights and then, more recently, action against the war in Iraq , the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium and Fairtrade.  Joy lives in Castle Douglas and is a member of Amnesty International and treasurer of the local branch of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.  She has one grown up son, who lives in Edinburgh.

Joy has chosen to accept the invitation to visit Palestine during this week of action as she feels that “to be silent – to turn away and act as if she is unaware of the atrocities being committed by the Israeli state on a daily basis against Palestinian citizens - is to be complicit in that oppression.”

Mick Napier is a University lecturer based in Edinburgh and is chair of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. He is UK co-ordinator of the "Welcome to Palestine" initiative. 

Speaking by phone before being transported to a prison facility near Tel-Aviv on Friday, Napier, chair of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign said, “By their actions, Israel has shown the world that its siege is not restricted to Gaza, but extends to the West Bank as well. We have been arrested in Tel-Aviv simply because we refused to conceal the fact that we intended to visit Palestinian friends in Bethlehem. In no other state would that be a crime.”