THE conflict between Israel and Palestine creates strong feelings on both sides, but one thing is for certain — that until a peaceful solution is found, thousands of innocent civilians will lose their lives. Kat Dibbits speaks to a Bolton-born activist about why she puts her life at risk to campaign for the Palestinians. . .

ASK any Westerner to tell you what comes to mind when you mention Gaza to them, and most are likely to say “suicide bombers” or “terrorists”. Some might mention the failed “roadmap to peace”. A very few might show genuine sympathy towards innocent victims from both sides of a hugely complicated dispute.

Few people would actually choose to go there, however. Certainly, it couldn’t be considered a sensible destination for a 74-year-old woman. But Mary Hughes Thompson is no ordinary pensioner.

The retired documentary maker was one of the activists on board two wooden fishing boats, the Free Gaza and the Liberty, that sailed into Gaza last month, defying the Israeli-imposed blockade on the city.

More than 40 international activists, including Bolton-born Mary, sailed to Gaza to deliver painkillers and hearing aids to children — things which we in Britain take for granted, but which in war-torn Gaza are precious commodities.

The group, which included Tony Blair’s sister-in-law Lauren Booth, also took part in protests against the “siege on Gaza” and accompanied Gazan fishermen to waters outside of the Israeli-imposed fishing limits — although photographs of a Palestinian fishing boat that had been rammed by an Israeli gunboat while the group were there show just how dangerous this is.

It is not the first time Mary, who was born in Little Hulton and moved to Canada when she was 18, has made the trip, although she says that each time the activists visit it becomes more difficult for them.

However, the issue is one that she feels so passionately about that she has sworn not to stop the aid visits, no matter what.

Mary, who was educated at St Edmund's in Bridgewater Street, said: “Once you’ve witnessed their suffering — and they are suffering terribly — you feel guilty every time you leave. They are so confined, even to their villages. Very often married couples are confined to villages four or five miles from each other.

“The Israelis issue identity cards to everyone in Palestine and they do their best to keep them apart. There are some really tragic stories where people are not able to live together as a family because Israel has imposed this barbaric system.

“As you get to know people they treat you like family and it’s very sad to leave. But every time you go back, the walls get higher and longer, the deprivation gets greater and there are more checkpoints.

“People cannot get to school or to medical facilities, everything is more restricted and more people are being killed. It’s an absolutely untenable situation. Everybody I know who has been feels exactly the same way.”

Israel supposedly withdrew settlers in 2005, but still controls the coast, airspace and borders of Gaza.

And Mary says the claim that the settlers have left the Gaza Strip is a lie. “The settlers will never be asked to leave. We’re talking about cities with universities and thousands and thousands of people — they will never be moved from Palestine,” she said.

Mary says that American support for Israel means that the settlers will never be removed from the Gaza Strip.

“The Americans give carte blanche to the Israelis. The Israelis boast that the Americans will never stop them from doing anything. Israel is not the victim, Israel is the victimiser,” she said.

The Israelis say that their military presence is necessary in Gaza because of the attacks launched by the Palestinians on Israeli borders.

However, again, Mary disagrees. “It happens so rarely that I have actually never been there when something like that has happened. The problem is that the press in Israel and the propaganda machine is so powerful that most people think that attacks are regular occurrences. The truth is that there are very few attacks by Palestinians on Israelis.

“The Palestinian people are totally subjugated by the Israeli military, and are constantly attacked by settlers. I was attacked by settlers. The settlers pretty much have free reign,” she says.

Dan Kosky in The Jerusalem Post dismissed the trip as “an expensive publicity stunt,” claiming that the activists delivered no real aid.

But this is unlikely to be the opinion of Saed Mosleh, a teenager from Northern Gaza who lost a leg in an attack by Israeli tank shells three years ago. He had been denied an exit visa by the Israeli authorities, but the activists took him with them when they left, and he will finally be able to get the medical help he needs.

“They are living in absolutely horrendous circumstances, and all they ever ask is ‘please go back to your country and tell people about our suffering’. They know they have been virtually ignored. The Palestinians have the worst press in the world — everybody seems to think that the word ‘terrorist’ is synonymous with the word ‘Palestinian’,” Mary said.

She also claims that accusations of anti-Semitism against the Palestinians and their supporters are unfair.

“It’s not a religious thing. When people come there who are not pointing a gun in their face, they don’t have a problem with them. They don’t talk about Jews, they only talk about the soldiers and the settlers who want to do them harm,” she says.

Despite this, the deep-seated religious roots of the conflict make discussing the situation without reference to “Jews” and “Arabs” nigh on impossible.

Mary said: “They try all kinds of ways to banish Palestinians. People who leave to go on holiday are not let back in.

“People who were born in Jerusalem are not allowed in if they are not Jewish, whereas Jewish people from all over the world who have not set foot in the Holy Land can become citizens immediately just because they claim they had a Jewish grandmother. There has been a very open, overt attempt to cleanse the land of the non-Jewish people.”

Before the activists landed, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Aviv Shironeven warned that “all options” were under consideration to prevent such a “provocation”. Eventually the Government gave the two boats permission to enter Gazan waters.

However, Jeff Halper, a US-born Israeli citizen, who was travelling with the group was arrested after he entered Israel through the Erez border crossing. He was accused of breaking Israel’s law forbidding its citizens from entering the Gaza Strip. He is currently awaiting formal charges.

Mary says that the arrests, attacks on fishing boats and food shortages are part of a continued plan by the Israelis to bully and intimidate the Palestinian people and those who seek to support them.

But, she says, in time she truly believes that the situation will change.

“Eventually the world will not be so afraid to stand up to Israel and say ‘You cannot treat part of your population this way’, just as they did in South Africa and just as they did in the United States, but it will be a long time coming.

“Most of them have never known anything else. This has been going on in one form or another for the past 60 years. It’s so sad,” she said.