A woman originally from Keighley has been imprisoned in Israel after trying to travel to the Palestinian West Bank.

Mick Napier, the UK co-ordinator of the Welcome to Palestine Campaign 2012, said Paveen Yaqub was arrested alongside other campaigners after flying in to Tel Aviv on their way to Bethlehem.

He said he’d had a brief phone conversation with Ms Yaqub on Monday, and she was in “excellent spirits” despite her detention.

Ms Yaqub, an ex-pupil of the former Greenhead High School, took part in an aid flotilla attacked by Israeli soldiers in 2010. She was on a ship bound for Gaza when Israeli troops boarded it and killed nine Turkish nationals. She was herself imprisoned, deported and put on an Israeli ‘blacklist’.

She gave up her local government job to become a full-time humanitarian activist and now lives in Holmfirth.

Shortly before leaving England last Sunday for her attempt to reach the West Bank, she said Welcome to Palestine would highlight Israeli breaches of international law and human rights abuses.

She said. “This latest venture to fly to Israel to reach the West Bank for peacebuilding efforts is the third international peaceful protest, as part of the Welcome to Palestine Campaign.”