Nicola Tallant reports on a determined Irish woman who has resolved toremain in the West Bank until Israeli occupation ends
Irish "peacefighter" Caoimhe Butterly has said she will remain in the West Bank until Isreali occupation has ended.
The volunteer, who was shot last month trying to protect Palestinian children from Israeli soldiers, said: "I'm in this for the long haul. I think that as a human being of conscience it is not good enough for me to stay where I am comfortable.
"It is a horrific situation that brings out truth and humanity in people here," she says in the RTÉ documentary In The Eye of the Storm.
"This situation is so bad that it is important for me to speak the truth of what I am witnessing to outside communities."
Caoimhe has been living in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank since January.
Every day she walks with Palestinian children to school hoping that her presence as a white European will discourage Israeli soldiers from shooting at them.
As a member of the International Solidarity Movement, she acts as a human shield for the people against the Israeli snipers.
"Direct action is no longer chaining yourself to something. It is accompanying a woman past a sniper and physically getting in between a bullet and a child."
Caoimhe, from Cork, made news across the world when she was trapped inside Yassar Arafat's complex in Rammalah two years ago when then Israeli president Ariel Sharon exclaimed his country was at war.
She had entered the complex after an Israeli attack in retaliation for a suicide bomber attack on an Israeli bus.
She had hoped her presence at the siege would help ambulances gain access to the building to help injured people. She recalls: "There was shelling going on and buildings were blowing up behind us. There were trigger-happy soldiers everywhere and there were quite a few wounded. Nobody was going near the windows.
"People were huddling together making what they thought were their final calls to loved ones. We thought we would die that night.
"It was the most torturous experience of my life, not because I was afraid of death, as I am not, or of being wounded or other discomforts. It was torturous for me because I knew that elsewhere in Palestine my friends were under attack and I wanted to be with them.
"I was forbidden to get out and it was 16 days before I managed to escape. In that time five friends bled to death in Jenin camp, and they bled to death 300 metres away from a hospital and if I was there I could have carried them to it. That was the torture for me."
Caoimhe returned to Ireland after the Ramallah offensive but at the beginning of the year decided to commit herself full-time to the Palestinian cause.
She went to live at the refugee camp where she has vowed to stay until Israeli occupation ends.
"I really felt that this was a place that I felt and immediate connection. I found the people really welcoming and, ironically, being Irish really helped. Since April there have been horrible desecrations here. I have held friends in my arms who have bled to death and choked on their own blood.
"You have to live here to see how resilient the people here are. They are dedicated to their fight which they see as righteous. It is a fight for basic freedoms.
"There is an inherent racism here and I have to use the fact that I am white and European to get basic things that my Palestinian friends cannot get - things like bread and water.
"It sickens me that they may not shoot because I am there, but being a foreigner is something that I am prepared to use and abuse to minimise risk to others.
"Sometimes it is getting in between an exploding bullet and a child and hoping maybe your presence will stop that shot being fired.
In Jenin she lives without electricity or water. Food is distributed through the Red Cross, but she says often supplies and ambulances are not allowed enter because they are shot at by Israeli soldiers.
Last month Caoimhe was herself shot in the thigh by an Israeli soldier while trying to protect young children.
"I was with a group of children and there was an Israeli tank. I implored the soldiers not to shoot live ammunition at unarmed small children. But another tank pulled up and the hatch opened and a soldier got out, pointed the gun at the children behind me and started shooting in the air.
"The children started scattering and the older ones ran up an alleyway. There were three little ones still with me so I was trying to cajole them up the alleyway to safety. I glanced back and we kept running to the entrance of the alleyway. Then I was shot.
"When I fell they kept shooting. I had to crawl up the alley and the other children pulled me to safety." But she says she will not be scared away from her cause.
"I have a little cornfield in Mexico but I won't be seeing it for some time. I am in this for the long haul until this situation is resolved.".
In the Eye of the Storm is broadcast tonight at 7 p.m. on RTÉ1