Clare campaigner, Sarah Clancy, was the victim of a violent altercation in a high security Israeli prison on Sunday night last, which saw two females dragged away by security guards with high powered weapons and Alsatian dogs.
Ms Clancy, who is head of the Clare Public Participation Network, was abducted by Israeli officers in international waters close to Gaza last Wednesday night.
She was eventually transported with other members of the Global Sumud Flotilla to a high security prison in Israel, located in the desert some 2km from Egypt.
Ms Clancy and her fellow captives were denied clean drinking water throughout their four day detention and were also denied essential medicines as well as basic sanitary supplies.
Prisoners were also subjected to intimidation and phycological hardship similar to tactics used by the American military on prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.
One of these tactics is to randomly move prisoners from cell to cell during the night in an attempt to prevent them from sleeping and disorient them.
The violent altercation took place during one of these cell moves when Ms Clancy and two other prisoners attempted to secure camping mattresses to sleep on.
"Three of us went to get the mattresses and another woman was holding the cell door open. All the while the guards were telling us to stop," she told The Clare Champion yesterday.
"I had brought two mattresses back, as had another woman, and a third woman was bringing five mattresses. Three female prison guards, backed up by four male prison guards, tried to grab them from her. Foolishly enough, she tried to hold onto them.
"They knocked that woman to the ground and the eight prison guards started dragging that woman away. Another woman saw that, wrapped herself around the first woman and tried to hold her there. They pinned the two women to the ground, they banged one of their heads against the floor. Myself and another woman, who is an MEP, managed to pause this for a minute and we managed to get the women back into the cell again.
"The guards were demanding the two women back. Then they said to give them the two women or they would gas us. They had the gas, so we started preparing to be gassed. We could not give them the women, they were clearly going to harm them. They left and came back with a tactical unit. That is eight heavily armed men with Alsatians, backed up by another 12 armed men.
"They came into the cell, pinned us all against the back wall of the cell, and forcibly took the two women.
"One of the women was brought back, the one who had the five mattresses. The other woman, a Spanish woman, was not returned and we still don't know where she is.
"In the Israeli media, this incident is being reported as if the woman bit a doctor during a medical examination."
Ms Clancy, along with 500 members of the Global Sumud Flotilla including Fanore woman Maureen Almai, was abducted by Israeli forces on Wednesday evening last when their boats were boarded by Israeli troops in international waters in the eastern Mediterranean.
She says that the Irish consulate was an excellent support to the Irish flotilla members but the Irish Government is falling short of its obligations.
She described comments made by Taoiseach Micheál Martin (FF) about the flotilla in the hours before it was intercepted as 'disrespectful'.
"The Irish consulate were absolutely brilliant, but that is not the political action that we want from the Government. We want the Government to insure that food aid can get into Gaza," said Ms Clancy.
"The Irish Government allowed the Israeli Government to kidnap us, and their reaction was 'oh, sure we will send them some nice tracksuits so they can come home safe'.
"That is not what we need. We need states like Ireland, to stop letting Israel do whatever it wants.
"I think it [the actions of the Irish Government] was an absolute cop out. Our flotilla was attacked twice, once off Tunis and once off Crete.
"We were attacked [by drones] in international waters twice. Those attacks were very dangerous. They didn't mean to kill anyone, but they didn't care if they did.
"Micheál Martin, I would call his comments disrespectful and not showing leadership and not understanding the context of people acting when governments won't."
Ms Clancy believes that while the mission to Gaza was not ultimately a success, it has raised this situation more in the public consciousness.
"I am really sorry that we didn't get to Gaza and that we didn't deliver the aid. But the point isn't the specific aid that we had, but the overall ability of the people of Gaza to receive aid through their own ports, that is what we were trying to achieve," said Ms Clancy.
"Nothing can be considered a success in the face of genocide. I am hopeful that something good will come from the current peace talks. But, at the moment, it looks like a war criminals' deal and has had no input from the Palestinian people. I want to be hopeful, but it looks like another injustice to be put on top of the Palestinian people."