The pensioner, who lives near Swansea city centre says she had joined other international activists in protecting a village in Palestine against the Israeli military. Police arrested Ms Murphy and another woman from Sweden under the accusation that they were in a military area.
Ms Murphy has a long history of social justice campaigning and activism. In 2009 she was part of a group calling themselves the “Tesco 2” who took Israeli produce, including dates from Tesco’s Swansea city centre store before dumping them outside and spray painting them with red dye
In September 2014, Ms Murphy glued herself to a desk at Newport’s Commercial Street branch of Barclay’s Bank over the bank owning shares in an Israeli arms manufacturer. She was found guilty of making hoax bomb threats at Cardiff’s Motorpoint arena in 2017 in order to disrupt an arms fair taking place at the venue.
Ms Murphy was found guilty of criminal damage after spray painting the word “LIARS” onto the BBC Wales building in Cardiff during a pro-Palestine protest in October 2023. At a court hearing for the offence, Murphy and a number of supporters congregated outside Cardiff Magistrates’ Court where they waved Palestinian flags and sung “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
She was left needing hospital treatment after being allegedly pushed by a police officer while taking part in a Palestinian protest outside Marks and Spencer on Swansea’s Oxford Street in January 2024.
Ms Murphy worked for many years as a book keeper for the award winning Undercurrents media group in Swansea.
Today (2 June), Israeli police made an unsuccessful attempt to deport her. Ms Murphy was taken to Tel Aviv airport but has refused to be put on a plane and is calling for a court trial. She is now facing jail time in Israel.
Ms Murphy said: “When most governments all around the world are ignoring the genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, ordinary people like me are answering the Palestinians’ call to come and be a witness to these events being carried out by the Zionist Israeli entity. It’s not about politics, it’s about justice and freedom for all people.”
Ms Murphy had been in Palestine for three weeks and joined the Palestinian-led International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Founded in August 2001, ISM say they aim to support the Palestinian people by protecting their olive groves from being destroyed by Israel. They join people on school runs, at demonstrations and within villages that they say are being attacked.
Upon hearing of his mothers arrest, Dale Ryan, who lives in Caswell, Gower said: ” As far as I can see her only crime was observing crimes against Palestinian people. My mother has always had a strong sense of justice and I know she could not sit at home while she knew her friends in Masafer Yatta and all of Palestine were suffering unnecessarily. I am very proud of my mother for sticking up for the basic human rights of her friends and trying to raise awareness of the injustices the Palestinian people are experiencing. Of course I want her home safe with her family who love her, but I know a piece of her heart is in Palestine and she needs to be there, doing what she can.”
The village which Ms Murphy was arrested in was Khalet Al-Daba’a, a village in Masafer Yatta which the ISM claim is being illegally cleared by Israel.
All I can say is that Ms Murphy is one fab lady. Martin Luther King would be proud of her.
Ms Murphy believes in justice and that all of us are entitled to the same human rights. She is in Palestine protecting and supporting Palestinian people as a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement who are in very serious danger from injury and death by illegal Israeli settlers. The families are harassed day and night and violently attacked, some have been killed, their homes have been demolished, even the tents they live in have been destroyed by the settkers. Their animals are injured or killed, their crops and olives trees all of which are their livliehood have been destroyed by the illegal Israeli Zionist settlers. Ms Murphy is a credit to humanity and the world would be a better place if there were more people like her.
D is an amazing person so committed to justice. And a lovely person too
A good and brave human. We can do no more as individuals.