The activists who were amongst 1,300 international participants of the “Welcome to Palestine 2012” movement, had been taken to Givon Prison’s immigration detention centre on landing at Tel Aviv airport on April 17.
They had been trying to reach Bethlehem in the West Bank on a humanitarian mission to help build a school for the blind, but they were put into the Israeli jail.
On Friday night, the five Scots and four other Britons were deported from Israel and put on a flight to Manchester.
Joy Cherkaoui, a council worker from Auldgirth, near Dumfries, Karolin Hijazi, a doctor and lecturer at Aberdeen University, Jim Henry, a retired nurse from Irvine, Lynn Leitch, a retired teacher from Midlothian, and Terri McLaughlin, a nurse from Glasgow, were the activists who returned home.
Jim Henry’s son David said, “Dad was determined to go to Bethlehem as he wanted to help set up a school for blind children. He will be glad he has made a stand and raised awareness of the situation over there.”
SSM/MA/HE
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