A BRITAIN-BASED activist is being held in an Israeli prison without legal representation after a deportation order was issued against her.

D Murphy, originally from the Irish city of Cork but living in Swansea since the early 1980s, was arrested on May 31 while visiting Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank and has been in custody since Sunday.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist was initially held at Ben Gurion airport before being transferred to Givon prison in Ramla on Tuesday, campaigners said.

According to a deportation officer, Israeli authorities had up to 96 hours to bring her before a detention review tribunal.

However, campaigners said that when Ms Murphy was brought to a hearing today, her legal representative was not present and her lawyer had not been notified, despite her having requested this and multiple attempts by the lawyer to reach her through the prison service.

Ms Murphy was reportedly allowed a phone call in which she told her family she had been deliberately given the wrong number for her lawyer.

She last spoke to her legal representative on Monday and campaigners said they did not know the outcome of today’s hearing.

Ms Murphy was arrested alongside Swedish citizen Susanne Bjork, also a resident of Britain, while they were visiting Palestinian villages in the Masafer Yatta area.

An ISM spokesperson said: “Israel labels indigenous Palestinians, their supporters and those who tell the truth about the genocide unfolding in occupied Palestine as criminals and uses force to silence and remove them.

“In order to achieve Israel’s illegal colonial ambitions, the same unjust system that has detained our friends Bjork and Murphy in order to deport them is targeting and murdering Palestinians, including journalists, healthcare workers and educators, en masse in Gaza.”